


This Might Hurt

by greenteafiend



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Crying, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Multi, Pidge | Katie Holt Whump, Shiro (Voltron) Whump, Touch-Starved, Whump, they all have hopeful endings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-06-20 07:34:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 28,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenteafiend/pseuds/greenteafiend
Summary: 1. Accidentally hurt by a friend - Keith & Lance2. Touch Starved - Keith & Lance3. Don't let them see you cry - Shiro4. I will punish your friend for your failure - Keith & Pidge5. Dissociation - Keith6. Forced to watch - Keith & Shiro7. I have your loved one - Matt & Pidge8. Chained to a wall - Shiro & Keith9. Common Cold - Keith10. Nightmares - Keith & Lance11. Damaged Vocal Chords - Keith & Krolia12. Bleeding Out - Keith & Lance13. Hiding an Injury - Keith14. Sleep Deprivation - Keith & Lance15. Blindfolded - Keith & Krolia16. Human Shield - Pidge & Keith17. Isolation - Hunk & Keith(Place where I'm gonna post all the snippets I write for Bad Things Happen Bingo)





	1. Accidentally hurt by a friend - Keith & Lance

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr post for this prompt can be found [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176329689362/how-about-accidentally-hurt-by-friend-with)

_      “Don’t take your helmet off.” _

 

That had been the  _ one thing  _ Coran had really emphasized when he sent Keith and Lance on a scouting mission.

 

_      “Seeing as we’re passing by Mylanos, we may as well pick up some mylithnonite! It’s really rare in your home galaxy, and we need it if we’re to construct a new castle. Just, whatever you do,  _ **_don’t_ ** _ take off your helmets,”  _ he’d said, and with that, sent the pair of them off in the Red Lion.

 

It was a comfort to Keith that despite having been gone for two whole years, his team, his _ family _ , seemed to remain the same. He slotted back into the well-oiled cogs of Team Voltron as if he had never left, and his and Lance’s friendly banter picked up almost exactly where it had left off as they picked their way, side by side, across the barren, rocky terrain of Mylanos. 

 

     “It never occured to you to maybe, I dunno,  _ update _ your hairstyle when you were getting bigger and more grizzled?” ribbed Lance. They had to be very careful, Mylanos was perpetually covered in a thick white fog that reduced visibility down to only a few meters around them.

 

     “No,” replied Keith, smiling despite himself. He’d missed everyone  _ so much _ that not even Lance making fun of his hair could dent his happiness at being back in their presence.

 

     “Just because it doesn’t really match the rest of your aesthetic,” continued Lance.

 

     “My aesthetic _? _ ”

 

     “Yeah, your broody, badass, devil-may-care _ aesthetic _ . Well, that’s the aesthetic you  _ would _ have if it weren’t for the mullet.”

 

     “What’s my… _aesthetic_ with the mullet?”

 

     “It’s  _ sad, _ Keith. Really, really,  _ sad _ ,” said Lance, exaggerated and whiny, yet utterly charming in a way only he seemed able to manage.  

 

     “I didn’t exactly have a mirror or scissors handy on the back of that space whale,” said Keith.

 

     “Oh god, don’t tell me, you blindly hacked at it with your knife didn’t you?” groaned Lance.  

 

     “No… Krolia did.  _ Not _ -blindly.” 

 

     “Your mom,” said Lance softly, with no trace of teasing at all.  

 

     “Yeah… my mom,” Keith echoed.

 

     “I’m really glad you found her,” said Lance sincerely, “but next time, you should get someone else to cut your hair,” he continued cheekily.

 

     “What, you volunteering?” teased Keith right back. 

 

For a moment their eyes met through their helmets, and they grinned at each other. Keith had missed this. Banter.  _ Rapport.  _

 

The next moment, there was an awful creaking; the sound of rocks put under too much pressure. 

 

Their smiles turned into identical wide-eyed looks of  _ ‘oh, shit! _ ’ as the ground gave way underneath them, and they  _ fell. _

 

Luckily it was only a short drop, a couple of meters at most. Groaning in discomfort, Keith took stock and was relieved to find that his body seemed to still be in working order for him.

 

     “Lance, you alright?” he called, shifting jagged bits of broken rock around him as he got back to his feet.

 

The thickness of the fog had concealed the fact that they’d been walking right along the edge of a short cliff, and apparently their combined weight had been enough to make part of it collapse. 

 

Lance didn’t reply.

 

     “Lance, answer me,” called Keith sharply, stumbling over the loose rock fall, and cursing the fog as he tried to make his way to where he thought Lance might have landed.

 

_ There _ , white armour with blue accents; it stood out against the drab greys and browns of the rocks. He was lying face down, and something in Keith’s chest  _ hitched _ . 

 

_      No, no, no... _

 

He’d finally gotten back, everyone was  _ finally _ together again, Keith couldn’t lose someone now. 

 

He fell to his knees beside Lance, and turned him over by the shoulders as gently as he could manage with his heart beating so fast, and his hands shaking. 

 

     “Lance,  _ Lance, _ are you o--  _ shit! _ ”

 

Lance wasn’t wearing his helmet anymore. It had been knocked clean off during the fall, and there was cut near his hairline that was bleeding profusely. 

 

Lance’s eyes snapped open, and he blinked dazedly. 

 

     “We need to go,” Keith decided aloud, “where’s your helmet--”

 

He was cut off when Lance suddenly sat up and  _ pushed _ him, making him fall back heavily on his ass.  

 

     “What the-”

 

It was only because of his fast reflexes that Keith managed to get his shield up in time to deflect the bolts of plasma that Lance aimed at his head seconds later. Lance had drawn his bayard so quick that Keith had barely even  _ seen _ the motion.

 

     “Lance! What are you doing!” Keith screamed, scrambling to get his legs underneath him. Lance’s rifle wasn’t on safety mode, that would have gone straight through Keith’s head and _ killed _ him.

 

Lance didn’t reply. He got to his feet, took aim, and shot Keith in the leg where he was unprotected with unerring accuracy, right in between the hard plates of his armor, high on his thigh. 

 

Keith howled in pain; it _ burned _ , but Lance wasn’t done yet.    

 

He kept on shooting, and Keith was forced to shield himself better to avoid the barrage. When Lance failed to connect any more shots, he launched himself across the small space between them to try and physically beat down on Keith with the butt of his rifle. 

 

     “Stop it, Lance! Stop it!” Keith pleaded, leg burning with every movement he was forced to take to dodge, but Lance was relentlessly aggressive. His face was twisted into a silent snarl, and his pupils had receded into tiny pinpricks. Such a hateful expression looked so  _ wrong _ on Lance’s handsome face.  

 

Keith didn’t want to hurt him, but at this rate Lance was going to _ kill _ him. Keith drew his bayard, and blocked Lance’s next attack with his sword, forcing Lance to stumble back.

 

Keith held his sword out in front of him, hoping it would ward Lance off.

 

     “Stay back,” he said, voice cracking. 

 

To Keith’s complete shock, Lance bayard changed forms right before his eyes. Of course, he’d witnessed Lance switch bayard forms before between his regular rifle and his sleeker sniper rifle, but he’d never seen it like  _ this _ .

 

A fucking  _ broadsword _ . It had red accents, which somehow made everything even  _ worse _ . 

 

Lance leapt at him, bringing the blade down on Keith in a wide arc that would have cleaved his head in two if he hadn’t meet it with his own. Keith hadn’t even known that Lance  _ could _ fight with a sword. Keith would have been impressed at Lance’s skill if he wasn’t using it to try and stab him.

 

     “Please, Lance,  _ stop _ ,” Keith begged as they exchanged blows. Lance came after him again and again, and it was taking Keith everything he had to grit his teeth against the burning of his wound, and  _ block _ . 

 

He’d gone through this with Shiro only days ago, he  _ couldn’t _ handle it again. He hadn’t been able to kill Shiro, he’d barely been able to bring himself to  _ fight back _ , and he desperately didn’t want to hurt Lance now.  

 

     “I don’t want to fight,  _ stop it!” _

 

_      I am here. _

 

Keith felt a warm rush in his chest, molten and scorching like a bubbling caldera of lava, and then Red landed beside them, shaking the ground with the force of his impact, and knocking both Keith and Lance off their feet. 

 

_      Come. _

 

Red leaned forward, opened his mouth, and scooped the two of them off of the ground like they were wayward kittens, sending them rolling into the cockpit in a flurry of limbs. Keith lost his grip on his bayard in the confusion. 

 

Lance still had his, and was getting to his feet still holding that broadsword. The cockpit was so small, there was nowhere Keith could run to or hide. He tried to get up, but folded against the wall when his leg gave out. 

 

He pressed his back against the wall behind him, pulling out Krolia’s knife. It shook in front of him, his last line of defense against whatever insanity had infected Lance.  

 

The roaring of his blood in his ears and his own furiously paced heartbeat were all he could hear, so when Lance turned to look at him, Keith flinched and didn’t realise at first that Lance was talking. 

 

     “Keith…  _ Keith-- _ ”

 

Keith took a huge gulping breath of air when Lance’s bayard dematerialized; he’d been frozen so stiffly in fear that he hadn’t been breathing. It was too much.

 

First Shiro, now Lance, it was  _ too much. _

 

Lance held his empty hands up in front of Keith, a placating gesture, and crouched down to kneel in front of him.

 

     “Put the knife down, Keith. You don’t need it, I-I won’t hurt you,” he said softly. His voice broke on the word _ hurt. _

 

Keith obeyed, and his knife clattered to the floor of Red’s cockpit in between them.

 

He didn’t even realize that he’d started crying at some point until Lance reached out to wipe away some of the moisture on his cheeks.

 

     “I’m so sorry, Keith. That fog, it-it  _ did _ something to me. I’m sorry. I’m  _ sorry.” _

 

And then Lance was crying too, wrapping his arms around Keith shoulders to pull him into a hug.  Red took them back to the castle on autopilot; neither of them were in any condition to pilot, all they could do was cling to each other. 

  
  
  



	2. Touch starved - Keith & Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touch starved - Keith & Lance, this one is a bit klancey.

There were requirements that needed to met in order for Keith to sleep well.

The first, was physical exhaustion. He had to be worn out, completely _wrung_ of energy, with aching, trembling, muscles, so tired there was no room left in his brain to think.

The second was it had to be _quiet_ . He was a notoriously light sleeper, waking up at the _slightest_ disturbance. Even a change in the rhythm of someone’s breathing in the same room as him was enough to wake him. Enough to have him springing into alert defensiveness.

Lastly, he had to have his knife on him, within easy reach. No matter how exhausted he was, without his knife he wouldn’t feel safe enough to drop off.

Which was why it was so shocking to Keith to wake up, after having fallen asleep on the couch in the rec room, with _none_ of those requirements satisfied, feeling more well-rested than he could remember feeling almost _ever._

He hadn’t been physically exhausted; he hadn’t actually done anything even _mildly_ taxing that day so far.

It wasn’t quiet. The boring Altean movie he and Lance had been trying to get through was still playing, relatively loudly, in the background.

He didn’t have his knife on him. Ever since he saw the symbol on Thace’s blade, he was a little paranoid about having it on him around the castle just in case the wrapping came off the handle and someone _saw_ . He had his suspicions about what further investigation would reveal, and he was a little apprehensive (read: _terrified_ ) of what would happen if those suspicions were confirmed.

So the fact that he was laying sprawled across Lance’s chest - head resting right over where Lance’s heart was, one hand loosely fisted in the fabric of Lance’s ever-present jacket - wasn’t even the most shocking part of all of this.

Lance seemed to think it was however…

Keith got _one_ moment of bliss, where he was perfectly comfortable, with the warmth of Lance’s body seeping into his own, the calming scent of Altean soap filling his senses, and a profound feeling of _safety_ hanging over him…

… and then Lance looked down at him, he looked up, Lance yelped, and suddenly he was on the floor.

     “Why were you sleeping on me!” Lance yelped.

     “Why’d you push me on the floor!” Keith retorted heatedly.

 _“Because you were sleeping on me, why were you sleeping on me!?”_ shouted Lance.

     “Because it was comfortable!” shouted Keith back.

     “What are you two about shouting now?” injected Pidge. She’d just come into the room, laptop cradled carefully in her arms.

     “Nothing!” they both shouted simultaneously, and then Keith stormed off.  

  


 

 

Lance didn’t acknowledge what had happened, and Keith followed his lead, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it. How it had felt to hear someone else’s heartbeat, how nice it had been to share body heat...

When he’d lived alone in the desert, even when he’d had enough blankets, he’d never really been able to get _warm_ . It was like there was a pillar of ice inside his chest that only thawed when he was near other people, but he was hopelessly clueless about how to go about actually _being_ near people.  

He wanted it so badly. To touch, and be touched. It was as if his skin was _hungry_ for it, but he didn’t know how to ask.

To make things worse, it was as if his body had gotten a taste of what proper comfort and security felt like, and was no longer satisfied with physical exhaustion, quiet, and his knife as sleep-aids. He lay awake for hours, shivering even though the castle wasn’t cold, arms wrapped tightly around himself to try and mimic the feeling of a hug.

He knew it was his own fault. The others thought he was a loner, that he preferred being alone, and his temperament being what it was, (hot-headed, angry, _impulsive_ ) he could understand why were more standoffish with him than with each other. When they hugged each other and high-fived after a mission well done, Keith only gots nods of acknowledgement. He was reaping what he’d sown; they thought that was what he preferred.

Shiro was the exception to that. Shiro would put a hand on his shoulder, and sometimes, he’d even pull him into a half-hug, but it only happened rarely, and it was _careful._ Shiro was always very careful to never crowd him.

When they’d first met, and even Shiro’s most innocuous movements had made Keith flinch, had made Keith so very aware of how much larger and stronger than him Shiro was, how much damage he could do to Keith if he wanted to, he’d been grateful for that care.

Now however, when every day that went by left him feeling more and more exhausted, more and more like the icy pillar in his chest might overcome him completely, Keith wished he knew how to reach out.

But he didn’t, so he suffered in silence, and thought a lot about the firmness of Lance’s chest, and the safety he’d felt being held in his arms.

  


 

 

     “Jesus, Keith. You look awful,” remarked Lance a week later. They’d found themselves alone in the rec room as they usually did when Shiro was busy with leader stuff, and Hunk and Pidge were busy with science stuff. It said a lot about how bad Keith must have looked that Lance’s remark had actually sounded concerned, rather than mocking or teasing.

He shrugged in response.

     “You look… really tired. You should have a nap or something,” suggested Lance.

     “I’ve tried,” Keith muttered.

     “You obviously need to try harder,” said Lance. “I’m gonna put on that movie we tried to watch last week, maybe it’ll put you to sleep again. Just try not to fall asleep on top of me this time,” the words were teasing, and pretty tame as far as their banter usually went, but Keith had just spent a whole week trying to capture the feeling of lying against Lance with his imagination in an attempt to trick his body into letting him sleep, so he wasn’t amused.

     “Was it really that bad?” he asked. The question came out sounding small and vulnerable, rather than annoyed and accusing like he’d intended.  

Lance’s eyebrows had raised so high they disappeared underneath his hair.

     “Do my ears deceive me? Keith Kogane, resident Red Paladin and killjoy, asking me, _‘Was it really that bad,’_ when talking about accidental, completely unintentional, cuddling that definitely didn’t happen.” Lance’s imitation of his voice was very poor in Keith’s opinion.

     “What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith snapped, not in the mood to decipher Lance’s silliness.

     “It means, _I_ like cuddles as much as the next person, but _you’re_ allergic to human interaction,” Lance explained.

     “Oh...” said Keith, looking down at his knees as everything in him just shrivelled up.   

     “What am I doing wrong?” he asked.

     “Doing wrong-?”

     “Everyone thinks I want to be alone. No one ever hugs me,” Keith regretted the words the minute they left his mouth.

     “Never mind. Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, backtracking as quickly as possible.

It was fine that no one wanted to touch him. They didn’t owe him anything, he was _fine._ He could deal with the cold, itchy feeling underneath his hungry skin the same way he always had, _alone._

     “I’m just gonna-” he got up, intending to escape from this whole mortifying situation as quickly as possible, but Lance stood too and grabbed his wrist to stop him. The simple touch made him shiver.

     “Hang on a minute, are you saying you _like_ hugs?”

Keith shrugged.

     “I just… that nap with you was the last good sleep I had,” he admitted.

There was a beat of silence, and then Lance let out an irritated huff.

     “Fiiine,” he whined, “it _was_ pretty comfortable. And you _do_ look like you need sleep.”

Keith frowned.

     “What are you saying?”

     “I _guess_ I don’t mind if we have another nap like the other day,” he said, sounding put upon.

Keith wanted to, he _ached_ for the safety of Lance’s embrace, he could taste sleep on the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t want something given so begrudgingly. He’d been through that before with countless foster families. Accepting things people didn’t want to give you didn’t work out in the long run.

He pulled his wrist out of Lance’s grip.

     “Look, if this is some sort of-- if you feel _sorry_ for me--”

     “Hey, _hey_ ,” interrupted Lance, “I said I like cuddling, didn’t I?”

Lance sat back down on the couch, raising an arm invitingly.

     “Stop being so grumpy, and just c’mere,” he ordered.

Keith wanted it so badly... His resistance crumbled under the weight of Lance’s expectant stare like a sandcastle breaking apart under the weight of a wave.   

He obeyed, tucking himself carefully against Lance’s side, and shivering when Lance’s arm clamped around shoulders. His ear was pressed up right against Lance’s chest, and he could hear his heartbeat. He could smell the soap he used, he could bask in his warmth.

It felt so good, so _safe._

Keith fell asleep.

  


 

 

(And when Lance was positive that Keith _was_ indeed asleep, he ran his fingers through his hair.)

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this prompt [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176369437907/touch-starved-keith-klance-your-writing-are)


	3. I will punish your friend for your failure - Keith & Pidge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This also features 'take me instead' and 'forced to beg,' but because each snippet can only count towards one square, I'll have to do separate ones for them again later. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

When Keith and Pidge had first shown up to offer the people of Chantrea aid, they had been all smiles and gratitude.

The minute they’d let their guard down, they’d been disarmed and tied up. Inside the winding labyrinth of a building that was these aliens’ home, they were put in a large room on a dais. There was a crowd gathered, and they were all staring at Keith hatefully...  

     “We smelled Galra stench on you the minute you walked in,” said their leader, an alien with leathery skin, and beady black eyes. 

     “My planet and my people bore Galra colonization for five hundred years, and we’ve been free for less than  _ one _ . You think we don’t remember what your people _  smell  _ like?” he spat. 

Neither Keith nor Pidge could reply. They were both gagged, with their arms tied behind their backs. They’d tied Keith’s wrists together so tightly that he couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers. 

     “I’ve waited twenty deca-phoebes for the chance to exact revenge on one of your kind,” the leader continued. 

He gestured to one of the other aliens to approach, and Keith braced himself to withstand whatever it was they wanted to throw at him, but it wasn’t  _ him  _ they grabbed. It was  _ Pidge _ .

Keith’s eyes widened in horror at the implications, and he struggled harder than ever to escape his restraints, but it was no use. A satisfied smile spread across the leader’s weathered face.

     “I used to have a sister,” he said, tone slow and easy like he was gearing up to tell a bedtime story.    
  
     “One year when we failed to meet our energy crystal quota, and the Galra held a meeting in this very room.”

Pidge was set down on the floor facing Keith - he could see how frighted she looked, wide-eyed with terror - and forced her to her knees. 

    “They chose my sister, and they chained her to the floor where your friend is right now.”

Several more aliens stepped forwards to untie Pidge’s wrists, and cuff them separately to large metal rings on the floor. Keith struggled against his restraints even  _ harder,  _  trying to yell through the gag in his mouth. White hot panic laced through his body, and his blood pounded in his ears. He could handle it if they took out their anger and frustration on him, but not on her. Anyone, but her. 

Pidge was like a little sister to him, and it was sort of an unspoken thing between all of them - Hunk, Lance, Shiro, and himself - to  _ protect _ her. She was the smartest, and fiercest of them, but she was also the youngest, and smallest. Anyone one of them would gladly take a hit in her place. 

These aliens had chosen the most effective way to hit Keith where it would really hurt him; if they punished Pidge in his place, it would _  kill  _ him. Judging by the leader’s smile, - a terrible thing, cruel and mocking - they knew it too.

“Do you want to know what happened next?” asked the leader, pausing for effect. It was a rhetorical question because Keith couldn’t reply, he was still gagged, but that didn’t stop him from trying to scream around it. The crowd just watched him, like the spectacle was a show. Like Pidge’s terrified face, trembling body, and Keith’s vain attempted to free himself, were entertainment.

He nodded at one of the aliens who’d cuffed Pidge in place, who then reached down, took a hold of one of Pidge’s fingers, and  _ twisted.  _

The crack was sickening, and it reverberated through Keith’s whole being painfully. He’d never forget the look on Pidge’s face in that moment, or the muffled sound of pain she’d made. It cut through him like sharp knife to the chest, and every tear that spilled down her cheeks was like a tiny shard of ice embedding itself in his heart. 

     “Such a fragile creature, so easy to break,” said the leader in a silky voice. 

Keith  _ writhed _ against his restraints, utterly enraged. He wrenched his arms viciously with no care for what the ropes were doing to the skin and bones of his wrists, no care for the fact that he was dangerously close to dislocating his own shoulders. When he got free, he was going to fucking  _ kill  _ them all. 

     “How many more we break depends on  _ you _ .” 

     The leader gestured again, and two aliens approached Keith up on the dais. One grabbed him in a headlock to hold his wriggling form still, while the other untied the gag. The minute his mouth was free, Keith spat in their face, and tried to bite, but both aliens danced out of the way before he could get them. From a safe distance, one of them delivered a stinging backhand to Keith across the face, so hard it made his neck snap to the side, and his head spin. That was fine, he could take it. What he  _ couldn’t  _ take was the same alien from before, grabbing another one of Pidge’s fingers--  

There was another awful snap. Pidge  _ screamed _ , sobbing uncontrollably around her gag.

     “ _ Stop it! _ ” Keith screamed, “stop hurting her!”

     “Like I said, how many more we break depends on  _ you _ , and your behavior,” said the leader severely. 

Keith understood immediately; if he acted up or tried to resist, they would take it out on her. 

He was coiled up like a spring; every muscles in his body was clenched so tightly it  _ hurt _ . He was struggling to regulate his breathing with the sheer amount of anger and adrenaline pounding through his veins, but he forced himself to hold still. 

_      Patience yields focus, patience yields focus, patience yields focus… _

     “Good, that’s better,” crooned the leader mockingly. It took every shred of self-control Keith possessed to hold still and not do anything reckless. The harrowing sound of Pidge’s pained sobs were a great motivator; they’d already hurt her on his behalf much more than his conscious could take.   

     “What do you want?” Keith managed to say in an even, albeit hoarse voice. 

     “They made me  _ beg _ for my sister’s life,” said the leader. “I want to see you  _ beg _ . If you fail to satisfy me, your friend will suffer.” 

     “ _ Please _ ,” said Keith immediately. He could have no pride when Pidge was staring at him with huge, terrified, wet eyes, and making the most heartbreaking pained sounds. 

     “Please,  _ don’t  _ hurt her. She isn’t even Galra, she’s innocent--”

_ Crack _ . Another finger. 

     “My sister was innocent too,” said the leader coldly. 

Pidge was going to start choking if she cried any harder, and sympathetic, tears of frustration welled up in Keith’s eyes. He was shaking. He needed them to stop, he’d do  _ anything _ to make them stop.

     “S-she isn’t the one you want, take  _ me _ instead, hurt  _ me _ \--” Keith begged

     “You think the Galra let me take my sister’s place when I asked?” hissed the leader. 

He nodded twice, and there were two more corresponding sickening cracks. Pidge was beside herself, writhing to get away from the pain, and crying so hard around the gag in her mouth that her small shoulders shook with it. That was every finger of her right hand...

Keith started crying too. He was completely powerless.

     “What do you want from me, I’ll do  _ anything _ ,” he choked out. 

The leader smiled. 

     “I want you to  _ suffer. _ ”

Suddenly, there was a bang on the wide double doors. 

Surprise flittered over the faces in the crowd, and the leader paused in his taunting to turn his attention to the source of the sound.

There was _  louder _ bang, like the first one had just been testing structural integrity, and then the doors exploded inwards, right off their hinges. 

Hunk appeared in the open doorway, gattling gun cocked and at the ready.  

Keith watched Hunk take in the scene. Hunk’s eyes found him first, tied up with tears running down his face, and then they shifted over to Pidge, cuffed to the floor, gagged, and sobbing.

The change that stole over their usually friendly yellow Paladin was chilling. It was like watching clouds gathering and dumping a violently icy deluge over a warm summer's day. Keith had never seen Hunk’s face look like this before; thunderous.  _ Intimidating.   _

Hunk took three steps into the room, and every alien shrank back from him. Keith didn’t blame them, if Hunk were looking at _  him _ like that, he’d already be running. 

     “Listen up. I am the the Yellow Paladin of Voltron, and I’m giving you all ten seconds to clear the fuck out, or  _ else _ ,” shouted Hunk, glaring at the crowd. Keith had never heard him swear before...  

In the ensuing chaos of almost every alien occupant of the room rushing to leave, their leader was the first to run by Hunk, and out of the broken down door. A few either very stupid, or very brave, individuals shifted their weight as if they wanted to try take Hunk on, but Hunk stared them down until they slinked away, and then it was just the three of them left. 

     “I found them, Lance. Come to my location,” said Hunk into the comms of his helmet, tone clipped, as he rushed over to them. 

     “ _ Roger that, _ ” came Lance’s faint reply. 

Hunk looked between them like he wasn’t sure who to help first, so Keith said, “Pidge. Careful with her r-right hand. They… th-they…” 

Hunk gasped when he saw, and Keith fell silent.

     “Oh, Pidge,” said Hunk, dematerialising his bayard, and kneeling down beside her. 

He got rid of the gag first. 

Pidge’s first word was a weak, trembling “ _ Keith _ ?”

     “I’m-I’m  _ so _ sorry,” replied Keith, getting choked up. He should have prevented this. He should have protected her better. 

     “Not your fault,” said Pidge, some of her old fierceness shining through even though she was hiccupping and crying. 

     “Y-you okay?” she asked.

     “ _ Me? _ I’m _  fine _ , what about _  you? _ ” said Keith incredulously.

     “You’ll  _ both _ be just fine after a couple vargas in a healing pod, okay?” said Hunk soothingly. 

He worked on cuffs around Pidge’s wrists next, and even though he moved slowly, with utmost care, Pidge still gasped in pain a few times during the process, prompting Hunk to murmured “sorry,” tremulously. He started to chatter nervously, the stone cold exterior he had put on for the aliens melting away under the warmth of his concern. 

     “As soon a Red started going nuts in the hangar back in the castle, Lance and I jumped in our lions. We knew where to go because Green came and fetched us once we arrived planetside. You’re lucky you brought Green and not Red, because I think Red would have just crashed into the building and brought it down on top of your heads--” 

     “Here you guys are!” yelled Lance to announce his presence, sauntering into the room, holding his his rifle at a jaunty angle.  

     “So what happened? Was it Ke--  _ hijo de puta!”  _ the easy smile slid right off Lance’s face when he saw what shape Keith and Pidge were in. 

     “What did they do to you?” he said, voice uncharacteristically hard.

He dematerialised his bayard, and rushed over to get started on untying Keith.

     “Oh my God,” he blurted when he saw whatever damage Keith had done to himself when he’d been struggling to get free. 

     “I’m gonna try and get the knots undone, but… this might hurt…” he said. Keith managed a half-shrug.

     “S’fine. Can’t feel my hands anyway. Do what you need to,” Keith muttered. 

     “Jesus,” muttered Lance faintly.

In the end, Lance had asked if Keith had his knife on him (he did) and he’d cut the rope off him. 

Once they were both freed, Hunk carried Pidge, and Lance led Keith with a warm hand on his shoulder blade, back to where they had parked their lions. Pidge went with Hunk in yellow, and Keith went in Blue with Lance. 

The journey was a bit of a blur. Lance wrapped a blue blanket around Keith’s shoulders, and sat him down against the wall in the cockpit, promising that he’d fly smoothly so as not to jostle him. It was as if Keith’s body was shutting down now that he and Pidge were safe. All the adrenaline draining away left him feeling weak and shaky, and he didn’t even notice that they had arrived in the castle until he realized Lance was kneeling in front of him, saying his name as if he’d been repeating it in a bid to get his attention for some time.   

     “Sorry,” he mumbled. 

     “It’s okay, buddy. Nothing to be sorry for,” replied Lance, brows creased with sympathy and concern. 

     “Now let’s get you to--”

     “There _ is _ ,” Keith interrupted. 

     “...Pardon?” 

     “There  _ is _ something to be sorry for. They hurt Pidge because of me. They wanted me to suffer because I’m Galra, so th-they make me w-watch while they--they-”

Lance pulled him against his chest, and hugged him tightly. Keith started to cry again, and his tears made faint plopping noises where they landed on Lance’s armor. 

     “Listen to me, Keith;  _ you have nothing to be sorry for _ ,” said Lance firmly, rubbing circles against the bare skin on the back of Keith’s neck. It was comforting.  

     “Pidge will be fine, the healing pod will fix her right up. Speaking of, your wrists are bleeding pretty badly; we need to get you to a pod too. Everything’s gonna be okay.” 

Lance pulled back, and wiped the worst of the moisture off Keith’s cheeks carefully with his thumb. 

     “Thanks, Lance,” Keith whispered.

     “Anytime.”

Lance helped him up, and walked him to the med bay.

  
  


 

 

 

When Keith woke from cryo sleep, two slender, but strong arms caught him, and hugged him tightly.

     “Pidge?” muttered Keith groggily, wrapping his arms around her automatically in return. The head buried against his chest nodded. 

“I’m glad you’re okay. Turns out that drink they gave us before they jumped us was some sort of slow-acting Galra poison. You’ve been in the pod for _ three _ days,” she blurted, voice muffled into the fabric of the cryosuit.

     “When did you get out?” asked Keith, struggling to remember how his legs usually worked to hold up his own weight, “are you alright?”

     “I’m fine, I got out ages ago,” said Pidge dismissively. 

     “Pidge, listen,” said Keith seriously, “I’m _ so _ sorry, what they did to you--  _ All  _ my fault--” 

     “Keith, you know how much I love blaming things on you,” piped up Lance, “if  _ I _ say it wasn’t your fault,  _ it wasn’t your fault _ .”

     “For once, Lance is right,” said Pidge, pulling back slightly to flash Keith a devilish grin. 

     “Hey!” protested Lance.

     “Pidge, you’re  _ hogging _ him, can  _ we  _ hug him now, too?” complained Hunk. 

     “Sorry guys, I’m pulling rank,” said Shiro, drawing Keith away from Pidge to hug him tightly, while every other Paladin protested vocally and loudly.

It was a bewildering experience for Keith, no one had ever argued over getting to hug him before.  

In a low voice, so no one else would hear, Shiro murmured, “Lance is right, though. No one blames you  _ at all _ for what happened, please don’t think that.”

     “Okay…” replied Keith, equally quietly. After being passed around everyone, and hugged more times in the space of ten minutes than he had been during his whole time at the Garrison as a cadet, he was ushered to the kitchen to be fed. 

There, Lance told him with gusto how Shiro had singlehandedly stormed the Chantrea labyrinth while Keith and Pidge had been healing to get back the red and green bayards, and their helmets. To say he was furious when he got back from his mission and found out what had happened, was a gross understatement. 

Sitting at the dining table with a plate full of hot food, surrounded by friends, still feeling warm from when they’d hugged him, Keith was content. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176441385292/for-your-bad-things-happen-bingo-can-i-please)
> 
> Check out the cool art that [Dash9er](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dash9er/pseuds/Dash9er) made!! You can reblog it and stuff [here](https://getoutnowash9.tumblr.com/post/178220084690/for-my-voltronbingo-keith-card-free-space-this) if you like :)


	4. Don't let them see you cry - Shiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is kinda sheithy.

Shiro had the clone’s memories. They were now, for all intents and purposes, the same person. So he remembered the fight with Keith. He remembered how Keith had pleaded with him, he remembered the awful, taunting, words he’d said. He remembered pressing the hot edge of his blade down, desperate to cleave Keith’s cheek, but only managing to get close enough to _ burn.  _

However, remembering his actions, and seeing their repercussions were two entirely different things. 

They’d been so frantic, first dealing with Lotor, and then saving Shiro’s life, that there hadn’t been any time to deal with the wound. Not that they could have if they’d had time anyway; the castle was gone, and Shiro had been occupying the only cryopod the had left. 

It was a vicious mark, red and blistered. It hadn’t even finished healing properly yet, or really had the chance to start.

     “Woah, woah, what are you doing Shiro? You need to lie down--” said Keith when Shiro struggled to heave himself upright.

     “Shiro, you need to rest,” agreed Allura urgently.

Shiro waved them off, swinging his legs over edge of the pod. His vision swam, and he had to blink rapidly to clear the black spots in front of his eyes.

     “I’m fine. Keith,  _ pod _ ,” he said, trying to infuse his voice with confidence and authority. It was a hard thing to manage when just sitting upright was hard. 

Everyone’s faces twisted in confusion. 

     “You want… _ Keith _ to get in the pod?” asked Hunk. 

Keith understood first, and one of his hands jerked up towards the burn on his face to hover in front of it, just shy of touching it. 

     “It’s just a flesh wound, I’m _ fine- _ -” he said. 

     “We should clean that up though,” chimed in Coran, “I packed a first aid kit in Blue.”

     “Trust Keith to get a cool scar. It fits with your older, cooler, more grizzled aesthetic,” said Lance jokingly, but Shiro only heard one word..

_      Scar, scar,  _ **_scar_ ** ...

It would scar. That was too much for Shiro. It was too much that tough, brave, earnest Keith would have to wear proof on his face for the rest of his life of violence that Shiro had committed against him. 

His eyes filled with tears, and he looked down. He desperately didn’t want anyone to see, he didn’t deserve to be upset about this when it was something he had done. He didn’t deserve to be comforted over this. It wasn’t just Keith’s face, he almost killed all of them. 

Shiro forced himself to his feet.

     “‘Scuse me, I’m-I’m just--” 

Shiro managed exactly one step before his legs gave out, and he would have face-planted to the ground if Allura hadn’t caught him. 

Everyone cried out his name in concern, crowding forward, but Shiro just wanted to be  _ alone.   _

Allura handled him as easily as if he were a toddler, forcing him to sit back down.

Shiro clapped his human hand - the only had he had left - over his mouth in a desperate bid to hold back the sob building in his chest, but it was no use. The awful, strangled sound made it out of his throat, and tears spilled down Shiro’s cheeks. 

There was a moment of stunned silence, and Shiro shifted his hand from his mouth to his eyes so they wouldn’t see him crying, and he wouldn’t have to see their stricken faces.

“I-I’m s-sorry. The castle, y-your  _ face _ , Keith,” he said brokenly. “All my fault...”

Small arms wrapped around his middle, and Shiro heard a small sniff that gave away that it was Pidge, pressing her face into his chest just like the hug she’d given him after he’d told her he knew she was Katie. 

Allura took his hand in hers, pulling it away from his face to squeeze it tightly.

Keith’s arms wrapped around his neck, letting Shiro cry against the crook of his neck. Keith was trembling. 

Hunk wrapped his arms around everyone from behind, a warm, grounding presence against Shiro’s back, Lance wrapped his arms around everyone from the front, and Coran set a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s not your fault, Shiro,” said Lance firmly, uncharacteristically serious.     
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176353060517/what-about-dont-let-them-see-you-cry-with-shiro).


	5. Dissociation - Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Shiro ‘died’ at the end of season 2, what if it wasn’t so ambiguous?

     “Shiro! _Shiro!_ ” Keith shouted, sprinting for the Black Lion. She was laying a like a broken doll on her side, her great head flat against the floor of the hangar.

As much as Keith respected the Black Lion, in that moment he was ready get out his bayard and cut a hole right through her hull to get to Shiro if necessary. Luckily, it wasn’t; Black’s mouth opened readily to accept them.

With his entire being focused on getting to Shiro, desperate to reach him and make sure that he was okay, Keith didn’t notice a quiet presence taking up residence in a corner of his head. A presence whose deft caress he’d felt against his mind once before. Last time their goals had been entirely in sync; _protect_ . It had felt like a warm wind against his back, instilling Keith with dizzying confidence and awe. This time however, although that underlying warmth and confidence was still there, it was muted. _Soured_ by something powerful and deep. It felt like slow falling ash, or maybe a howling hurricane.

Keith was the first to dart up Black’s ramp. The foreign feelings intensified with every step he took, until they threatened to drown him. He couldn’t put a name to what it was until he saw inside the cockpit…

Grief. Mourning. The ash, the hurricane; it was Black _crying._

Shiro wasn’t in the pilot seat. His bayard was still in Black’s slot, in the neutral position. The seat was soaked with some mystery liquid that Keith couldn't identify against the black fabric, but he felt heartbreakingly certain that if he pressed his fingertips into it, they would come away stained _red_. There was a scorched scent in the air that made Keith think of lightning strikes and wildfires.

He took another step forward, and that let him see it; the most damning evidence of all.

Shiro’s Galra arm. Unattached to Shiro.

It was still wearing paladin armor, laying on the floor as if it had been haphazardly discarded. The white plates of the armor were smeared wet with blood...  

Reality crumbled around him, and Keith ceased to exist. If nothing was real, then this wasn’t happening. He wasn’t standing in the black lion, staring unblinkingly at all that was left of his dearest friend. That was someone else. He was numb, and high above it all, watching things unfold as a silent observer.  

Keith watched his empty shell of a body fall heavily to its knees. The eyes were empty, face blank; Keith wasn’t there anymore.

The next to arrive, the next to _see_ , was Lance.

     “Shiro-!? _No_ …” Keith heard Lance’s breathing hitch. Then there was more talking, more words. Keith heard it all, but it was meaningless to him. It wasn’t real and he wasn’t there. He didn’t feel a thing.

     “Hunk, grab Pidge, don’t let her see--” Lance, serious. _Strained._

     “What?! Why not?! Where’s Shiro--” Pidge, indignant.

     “Pidge…” Hunk, choked up.

     “No! _Let me go-_ -” Pidge, angry. Upset.

     “Not again,” Coran, exhausted.

Someone wept softly. Allura?

     “Lance, c-can you--”

     “Yes, Princess. I got him.”

Keith watched Lance kneel down beside his empty shell. He watched Lance put a hand on its shoulder.

     “Keith?” he murmured. Keith had never heard Lance’s voice go so soft...

     “C’mon, buddy. Come with me.”

Lance slid one arm around the shell’s shoulder, and took its hand with the other.

It obeyed the pressure of Lance’s touch, and stood, before allowing itself to be led outside to the hangar, docile as a lamb. Someone was sobbing. Maybe it was everyone.  

     “Is h-he okay?”

     “What’s wrong with him?”

Keith couldn’t tell whose voice said what, but they were talking about his empty shell.

     “Does he need medical attention? Is he hurt?” Coran.

     “Keith, are you injured?” Lance.

     “Keith, _please_ , talk to me. Say something, _anything._ ” Lance again.

Lance squeezed the shell’s shoulders tightly, stared into its dead eyes, but there was no one there.

     “I think he’s in shock.”

     “Allura and I… we’ll…” Coran made a gesture at Black.

     “A-are y-you sure?” Hunk. Pidge was buried in his arms, shaking all over. There were tears dripping down his face.

     "Yes. Go… go clean up. Try and rest. It was a hard battle.” Coran sounded like he’s aged another ten thousand years.

Lance herded the shell away, and Keith followed, numb and disembodied.

     “Keith? The door,” prompted Lance when they arrived to his room.

In the end Lance had to physically pick up the shell’s right hand and press it against the sensor so they could gain entry.

He sat the shell down on Keith’s bed, and got to work divesting him of the hard parts of his armor.

Keith felt no shame or embarrassment when Lance peeled the shell out of his flight suit, leaving it shivering in only Keith’s boxers. He felt nothing but numbness.

     “Good. No injuries,” Lance murmured.

Lance poked through Keith wardrobe, and returned with a red set of paladin pajamas. Keith hadn’t ever worn them before.  

Lance dressed the shell like it was a fragile doll, slowly and carefully, all soft touches and encouraging murmurs.

He had the shell lay down in bed, and then he tucked Keith’s blanket around it.

     “I’ll be back in a minute, Keith. I just gotta change, okay?”

Lance stared at the shell for a beat, as if he was waiting for a reply, or some kind of acknowledgement. The shell didn’t even blink.

Lance sighed.

     “I’ll be back,” he repeated. Then he was gone.

 

 

 

When Lance returned, face scrubbed, dressed to match Keith in his blue paladin pajamas, it somehow felt simultaneously like only an instant, and an eternity had passed.

The shell was exactly as Lance had left it. Laying on it’s back, staring blankly at the ceiling.

     “Keith, c’mon man, you’re _scaring_ me,” said Lance, sitting on the edge of the bed.

     “I know Shiro’s-- I-I know it _hurts_ . I don’t wanna believe it, and you were so much _closer_ to him, so I can’t even imagine--” Lance was getting choked up. His shoulders were shaking...

It was like snapping to wakefulness from a lucid dream. One second he was indifferent, watching from a corner in the ceiling, the next he was blinking and staring at Lance’s bowed back as the other boy cried quietly into his hands.

It was real.

It _hurt._

Of its own volition, one of Keith’s hands reached up to paw at Lance’s back, fisting weakly in the soft blue fabric to tug.

Lance turned to look at him. His blue eyes were wet with unshed tears.

     “Shiro…?” Keith whispered in a thin, broken voice.

Lance’s expression crumpled, and he shook his head, a short jerky motion.  

The sob took Keith by surprise, ripping out of his throat painfully. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.

He’d felt this before, an anguish so raw that it seemed impossible that he might ever recover; when his dad died, and the first time Shiro had gone missing. It had hurt so much, and he’d been so alone...

     “I’m sorry, Keith. Come here…”

Lance laid down and gathered Keith to his chest, stroking a hand through his hair and murmuring nonsense to him in a soothing tone.   

Keith had never had this before. Someone to help hold the hurt, fractured pieces of him together in the wake of tragedy. Someone to comfort him when he felt like he might rattle apart.

He curled his fingers into the fabric of Lance’s shirt, and pressed his face against Lance’s chest as he sobbed.

They stayed like that, entwined together, for hours.

Even though Shiro might be gone, Keith wasn’t alone.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumble post for this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176533447477/i-would-love-to-see-dissociation-or-paralyzed).


	6. Forced to watch - Shiro & Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part of the BoM episode from Shiro's POV.

     “These trials result in one thing. Knowledge, or _death_.”

Shiro wasn’t quite sure how the situation had spun so wildly out of his control. He knew what it was like to _need_ to do something so badly that reason and safety didn’t matter. The desperation on Keith’s face when he’d begged these Galra to tell him about his blade, Shiro understood _exactly_ how Keith felt, because that was how he’d felt about going on the Kerberos mission.

It was something he’d _needed_ to do, and Shiro hadn’t let anything or anyone get in his way. Not the man he loved, and not the prospect of losing his own life.

He was discovering that being on the other end of things, watching someone he cared about _killing_ themselves for something that clearly meant the whole world to them, but that _he_ didn’t quite understand, was awful _._ No, it was _worse_ than awful, it was _torture._

Keith looked like a child compared to the Blade of Marmora agents he was being pitted against. Every hit he took made Shiro’s jaw clench, and fists tighten. The only thing holding him back from bursting into that room, and shoving Keith behind him where he could protect him, was the stubborn set of Keith’s chin, and the flinty determination shining in his eyes. Keith deserved to see this thing through to the end...

But when Shiro saw a fake hologram of himself speak to Keith, when he heard his own voice telling brave, selfless, _Keith_ , that he was being selfish as usual, that he was choosing to be alone, Shiro couldn’t stand by and watch.

The look of anguish on Keith’s face was like a punch in the gut. Even though he tried to be tough and independent, Shiro knew exactly how soft Keith really was on the inside, how much he took things to heart, and he couldn’t allow this stand.

     “I’m calling this off,” he snapped.

     “You cannot interfere!” protested one of the Blade of Marmora agents.   
  
     “ _Try_ and stop me,” Shiro growled, activating his Galra prosthetic.

If they tried to get in his way, he’d just go _through_ them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176402666692/could-you-do-forced-to-watch-with-protectiveshiro)


	7. I have your loved one - Matt & Pidge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This happens sometime after season 6.

When Lotor and the Paladins of Voltron were not seen for weeks, rumors flew that they had destroyed each other.

Matt never accepted it for one second. He knew his brilliant, brave, intelligent little sister was still out there, and he had complete confidence in her ability to return to him. The women in his family were notoriously stubborn. Matt’s mother was the strongest, most formidable person he knew, and Pidge was nothing if not their mother's daughter. In contrast, Matt had definitely taken after their father in the temperament department. Where Pidge had inherited their mother’s fierceness, Matt had inherited their father’s mellow, easy-going, demeanor.

So it didn’t take him by surprise at all to see Pidge alive. What took him him completely off guard, like a sucker punch to the gut, was _where_ he saw her.

Matt himself was in the high command center of the rebel forces, standing on Olia’s right side, staring at the open communication screen connected to Sendak’s flagship.

Sendak himself had hailed them, and demanded that they surrender their base on Olkari. Naturally, Olia had laughed in his face. Olkari was a _good_ defensive position, there was no way Sendak’s forces could take it from them.

     “Bring out our little Paladin,” said Sendak, a cruel smile twisting his harsh features into something grotesque.

Two Galra dragged out a tiny figure with a familiar mop of light brown hair. Matt’s breath caught in his chest as everything inside him screeched to a halt. His blood roared in his ears as every fibre of his being rejected what he was seeing. That couldn’t be his little sister, so far beyond his reach and in so much danger.

And then the figure looked up.

     “ _M-Matt?_ ” Unmistakably, heartbreakingly, _Pidge_ , saying his name. She sounded young and scared, and there was blood on her face, trickling down one side to drip off her chin.

She stared at him with a slightly dazed look on her face, looking for all the world like the only thing keeping her from floating away, and off into space, was the bruising grip of the Galra by her sides.

It forcibly reminded Matt of a time when they were small children and she’d fallen out of their treehouse, hitting her head hard enough for a nasty concussion. Her eyes had been unfocused, her expression slightly confused, brow furrowed like understanding what was going on was _hard_ , just like she was now. Matt had cried like a baby even though he was older, and not the one who got hurt.

The pain of watching her be hurt was worse than anything he could experience for himself, and in that moment, he felt equally as distraught and powerless as he had at eleven.

 _"Look after your sister for me, okay Matt?”_ those were his father’s parting words to him before he left. How would Matt ever be able to face either of his parents again if something happened to her?

Matt didn’t realise that he’d broken formation, that he’d started to march forward like he could _leap_ right through the holoscreen and snatch Pidge, haul her back to safety and crush her to his chest where he could keep her _safe_ , until Ryner and Nyma grabbed him, holding him back.

Sendak’s gaze alighted on him with interest, and Matt’s hands clenched into fists so tightly that his short blunt nails were in danger of making his palms bleed.

     “ _Let her go_ ,” he snarled, sounding nothing at all like himself.

Sendak laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound, it set Matt’s nerves on edge.

     “Who is that boy to you, little paladin?”

There was still some defiance left in her because Pidge didn’t reply, she just glared at Sendak hatefully.

Sendak nodded at the guards, and one of them backhanded her hard enough that the only thing that stopped her from being thrown across the room was the grip of the other.

     “He asked you a question,” snapped the guard.

     “M-my sister! I’m her brother, she’s my sist--” blurted Matt, desperate to stop them hurting her, before getting cut off by someone clamping a hand over his mouth.

     “Interesting…” remarked Sendak.

     “I’m willing to spare her life in exchange for your surrender,” he continued.

Matt looked to Olia, who stared back at him sorrowfully.

_No!_

He tried to yell, tried to _shout,_ but he could only make muffled sounds of protest against the hand covering his mouth, struggling in vain against all the arms holding him back.  

     “We will not surrender the base,” said Olia firmly, turning away from Matt to face Sendak.

     “That is a shame,” said Sendak, motioning to his guards once more. This time they hit Pidge in the gut, hard enough that she doubled over and fell to her knees.    

Tears gathered in Matt’s eyes, and he struggled even harder.

Sendak walked over and fisted a hand in the back of Pidge’s head, forcing her to look up at them.

     “Look at him, little Paladin,” he said. Pidge’s eyes found Matt’s. There was a clam acceptance in her gaze that turned Matt’s blood into ice.

     “Say his name for me,” Sendak ordered.

She pressed her lips together, remaining stubbornly silent.

Sendak yanked her head back even harder, making tears squeeze out at the corners of her eyes with how hard he was pulling her hair.

     “Say. His. _Name_.”

Suddenly, one of the guards holding Pidge crumpled to the ground.

Sendak abruptly let go of Pidge in order to bring up his hulking fake arm in time to avoid having his face split open by a sword, shifting backwards out of their plane of view.

 _Lance_. Matt recognized him. He didn’t recognize the gleaming broadsword he was wielding, however.

 _Keith_ came into view next, dispatching the other guard with ease. Before their eyes, Lance’s sword transformed into the gun Matt was familiar with, and he shot at something out of their view.

Then _Hunk_ bound into view, dematerializing his bayard so he could scoop Pidge into his arms.

     “I got her, c’mon, let’s go!” he yelled, and as quickly as they had appeared, Keith, Lance, and Hunk disappeared with Pidge. A split second later the connection between them was cut and the holoscreen went blank.

     “Matt?” said Olia quietly, breaking the stunned silence that had descended over the room.

Matt shook off the arms of the people holding onto him, and this time they let him go.

     “Excuse me,” he muttered roughly, striding from the room.

No one tried to stop him, wisely giving him space.

 

 

 

When the Lions of Voltron showed up a few days later on Olkari, Matt hugged Pidge so hard and for so long that she laughed at him and wriggled out of his grasp when it became clear that he wasn’t going to let go until she pulled away.

He hugged Lance, Hunk, and Keith too for good measure. Lance accepted his hug with good humor, Hunk accepted his with warmth and enthusiasm, while poor Keith froze, as stiff as a statue at the attention, awkwardly patting Matt on the back like he wasn’t sure what to do with his arms.

     “Thank you so much,” he told them, quiet and sincere while Pidge was distracted greeting beezer.

     “She’s like a sister to us too, man,” said Hunk simply.

Not for the first time, Matt was glad at the company Pidge had found herself up here with. They were lucky to have her, she was lucky to have them, and Matt was lucky they had each other.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176639542872/with-the-bingo-thinghow-about-i-have-your).


	8. Chained to a wall - Shiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chained to a wall - Shiro.
> 
> This one is a bit sheithy, or platonic shieth if you prefer :)

_“It takes more than a glowing alien wound, a fall from the upper atmosphere, and crashing into a hard pan surface, at what I’m guessing is about 25 meters per second squared, to get rid of me. How are you?”_

_“…Not good. My lion’s busted. Wait, what wound?”_

_“It’s nothing.”_

_“Hang on, I’m coming.”_

_“On second thought, you–”_

_“Shiro? On second thought, what? Shiro?!”_

* * *

Pain.

It was the first thing Shiro became aware of.

Stabbing pain in his arm, where his human flesh met the metal of his prosthetic. Lancing pain in his side, burning brighter with every breath he took.

His arms were spread wide, bearing all his weight. There was tension held in them, a  _strain_ , and he instinctively knew that if he could just draw his arms in, if he could curl in on himself, everything would be about a hundred times less painful.  

He weakly tried to move, only to find that his Galra arm was completely unresponsive, and his human arm was tied in place, cold chains cutting into the skin of his wrists harshly. Every minute movement made the pain  _worse_ , and a groan escaped his lips. He wasn’t wearing his helmet anymore…

     “Oh, you’re alive,” said an unfamiliar voice.  

Shiro opened his eyes, blinking blearily, and found himself face to face to with an alien.  

They had grey scaly skin, and three arms plus a stump where a fourth arm was obviously supposed to be.

Shiro glanced around. He was in a large cave, chained up against a wall with his legs tied together and arms spread wide. It was obviously this creature’s home. There were carved out shelves lining the walls that held various mechanical implements, and there was a wireless light source fitting to the ceiling of the cave.

The alien himself was standing on a step ladder in front of him.

     “W-where am I?” he croaked.

     “Hm, maybe it’s better this way,” muttered the alien to themself, ignoring Shiro’s question.

The alien leaned in, and Shiro’s vision dissolved to white as pain radiated from his bicep. There was something  _inside_  him, stabbed into the stump of his arm. He let out a guttural moan of pain when the alien jerked back, and the sharp painful pressure abated; the alien had yanked a flat blade out of him. It was covered in  _blood._

     “That there arm you have, it’s a nice model,” said the alien, wiping the sticky red liquid off their blade with a dirty rag nonchalantly. “See, I’ve been trying to get it to come  _off.”_

     “It doesn’t come  _off,_ ” said Shiro, panting heavily. “Let me  _down.”_

 _“Course_  it comes off, it got put on didn’t it?” said the alien, stroking the metal with knobby grey fingers lovingly.

It was fucking  _creepy,_  and Shiro tried to flinch away bodily, but failed to move far on account of the chains around his wrists.   

Shiro tried to activate his Galra arm, it could cut through metal easily, but it wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t even  _twitch._

     “I hacked the source code to see what it could do, and  _wow,_ color me  _impressed_. Couldn’t have it accidentally activating while I was removing it though, so it’s disabled at the moment,” explained the alien.

     “So how can I remove it? Or do I have to continue with what I was doing before?”

_Before?_

With dawning horror, Shiro realized that he’d woken up when this alien had stabbed him in the arm, intending to slice his prosthetic from his body if they had to.   

     “I’m serious, it doesn’t come off,” said Shiro desperately, ignoring the pain of movement to struggle in earnest.

     “I’m gonna need a bigger knife,” muttered the alien to themself, climbing down the ladder.

They walked over to one of their many shelves and started rifling through boxes, filling the cave of the sound of rattling metal.

     “You see, your skin looks so  _soft_ ,” said the alien conversationally, as if they weren’t searching for a knife to cut off Shiro’s arm.

     “I thought the flesh would be correspondingly easy to cleave. My mistake, obviously. Your species is tougher than it looks.”

This was Shiro’s worst nightmare. He’d been through this already with the Galra, he couldn’t go through it again, but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t get free.    

The edges of his vision started to warp and blacken as he began to panic, struggling to take in air. He knew he needed to breathe deeper, that the feeling of suffocation was an illusion brought on my his own inability to slow down, but he couldn’t.

He was a prisoner again, powerless to control anything that happened to him. He was going to be hurt, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

 _“Shiro?! Shiro, come in! Can you hear me?”_  the voice was thin and crackling, but unmistakable.

     “K-Keith?” Shiro wheezed.

The alien halted it’s search, and shuffled across the cave to pick up Shiro’s helmet where it was sitting on the floor beside where Shiro hung; that was where the sound had emanated from.

 _“Shiro!”_  Keith breathed, a relieved sound.  _“I’ve arrived at the Black Lion, but I can’t see you. Where are you?”_

     “Keith, h- _help–”_

Holding the helmet between two hands, the alien used their third to deftly sever the comlink.

     “Friend of yours?” said the alien. “He’s a talkative one, chattered away pretty much the whole time I thought you were dead.”

     “Let me go,” Shiro begged.

     “Now, now, once I get the piece of you I  _want,_ I’m happy to let your  _Keith_  collect the rest.”

The alien went back the shelving, and let out a whoop of triumph when they found what they’d been searching for; a serrated machete. The sight of it nearly make Shiro pass out.

     “Found it,” they crowed.

     “No, no, please, no,” whimpered Shiro, dread clogging his throat.

     “Huh, is that normal for your species? Liquid leaking out of your face? Or rather, your eyes?” asked the alien as they climbed up the step ladder, squinting at Shiro.  

They leaned in close, sour breath fanning across Shiro’s face, and licked one of his wet cheeks.

Shiro held his breath, shuddering in revulsion. It was slimy…

     “Hmm…” hummed the alien thoughtfully, “how strange, it’s salty. Anyway, let’s begin.”

The alien raised the machete, and wedged the blade in the seam between his skin, and his prosthetic. Shiro’s breathing hitched, and every inch of him tensed.

     “Please don’t, you don’t have to do this, don’t,  _please–”_

_“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”_

The alien pulled away to look up, and Shiro couldn’t help but let out a sob of relief.

It was Keith, standing in the entrance to the cave, looking downright  _murderous._ He was all bristled up like an angry cat, trembling with the force of his fury, and leveling his sword at the alien’s throat.

The alien looked back at Shiro, lowering the machete to their side.

     “That’s your  _Keith_ , isn’t it?” they said.

     “You have two second to step away from him before I  _make_  you,” threatened Keith vehemently.

The alien sighed and began climbing down the step ladder, muttering under their breath about how unfair it was to  _finally_ find a replacement arm, only to have it cruelly snatched away.

     “Get back  _further,_ ” Keith snarled, glaring until the alien retreated all the way to the opposite side of the cave.

     “Turn around and put your arms on the wall.” The alien did as they were told, having the good sense to realize that pushing Keith really wasn’t a good idea in that moment. The minute Keith was satisfied that the alien wasn’t going to try anything, he rushed over.

     “I’m so sorry I took so long,” said Keith emphatically, dematerializing his bayard so he could start undoing the restraints.

He freed Shiro’s feet first, and shoved the stepladder closer so that Shiro could stand up on it. Shiro groaned. It was such a relief to _not_  have his own weight pulling on his arms. Keith removed the chain from Shiro’s Galra arm next, and it swung down to hang by his side uselessly. Keith frowned, but refrained from commenting, getting to work on freeing Shiro’s human hand.

It was only once all the chains were off of him that Shiro realized how little strength he had left to stand on his own.

     “I got you,” Keith murmured, catching Shiro’s listing weight by neatly slotting himself underneath his arm when he overbalanced sideways.

Keith carefully helped Shiro get down the stepladder, before leading him to the exit.

     “If you know what’s good for you, don’t follow us,” Keith barked as they left.

The alien huffed in reply, clearly disgruntled with the way things had worked out, but powerless to stop them.

     “Are you alright?” asked Keith as he helped Shiro out of the cave.

The short answer was no. He wasn’t alright at all. He wanted to lie down and cry, and then sleep forever.

     “I’ll be okay,” is what he said aloud to Keith, trying to infuse his voice was conviction, and surreptitiously wipe at the wetness on his cheeks. Keith tactfully ignored it, and Shiro was grateful.  

By the time they reached the exit, Shiro was panting from exertion, utterly exhausted.

He looked out across the landscape, relishing the feel of a warm breeze against his face. For miles around them, all that could be seen was beige sand. If it wasn’t for geysers in the distance, this place could have been the Sonoran desert. 

A warm rumble echoed across his mind, and Shiro turned to find the Black Lion parked on top of the entrance to the cave.

     “How is this– I didn’t crash here,” said Shiro, bewildered.

     “Black could sense that you were in trouble and she let me pilot to get to you,” explained Keith. Shiro’s eyes widened in shock.

     “Keith,” he breathed, “that’s–”

     “It’s nothing,” interrupted Keith gruffly. “Let’s get out of here.”

It  _wasn’t_ nothing. Keith could pilot Black. That was good, when Shiro– when he  _couldn’t_  anymore, there would still be a Black Paladin that wasn’t Zarkon. Keith could lead them, Shiro knew he could.

Keith helped him into Black, and once there, Shiro practically collapsed against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting. It felt really good to just _sit_. Black’s aura surrounded him, and Shiro could feel her relief that he was safe. He could feel her gratitude towards Keith, her fondness for him. It was something they had in common.

Keith hesitated for a moment, looking unsure about whether he should take the pilot’s seat or not.

     “Go ahead,” said Shiro, managing to muster up an encouraging smile. He was in no shape to pilot, he’d probably fly them into the ground.

Keith nodded, serious and earnest, like he always was.

Shiro let his eyes fall shut as Black flew them away.

He was safe.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post of this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/176907522717/hey-for-the-badthingshappen-would-you-be-up-to).


	9. Common Cold - Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Common Cold - Keith.
> 
> Set at the beginning of season 3.

When Keith almost coughed up his guts for the fifth time in the space of twenty minutes, Lance put his foot down.

 

     “That’s it, Keith, you’re _clearly_ not well. _Go to bed,_ ” he said, catching Keith by the forearm before he could march down to Red’s hanger. Nothing had been the same since Shiro’s disappearance. At first they’d all searched, only stopping to sleep and eat, but as the weeks had passed, and the likelihood of finding Shiro alive had dwindled…

 

Well, there were other people that needed them. Keith understood that, and he joined the others on missions, but any spare second he had, every moment of downtime, he spent _searching._ Keith was always _searching_ , with the desperation of a loyal dog, and his health was suffering for it. He was terrible at taking care of himself, and he was going to drive Lance mad with worry.  

 

Lance had known something like this would happen eventually. He had _known_ that Keith would burn himself out, and he’d thought to himself (a rather mean-spirited thought now that he considered it) that it would serve Keith right for not listening to anyone when they told him he needed slow down.

 

He’d imagined eventually crowing _‘I told you so!’_ on more than one occasion when Keith snapped at them, or failed to finish the meals Hunk worked so hard on to tempt him, but it turned out that the reality of seeing Keith laid so low didn’t make him feel like gloating in the least. Keith was pale, and haggard, with dark bruises under his eyes, and his cheeks were tinted red with fever. He looked too pathetic for Lance to derive any sort of satisfaction from being _right._ At this point, he just wanted Keith to be okay. To stop hurting himself.  

 

     “No,” Keith growled, voice rough and raspy. He sounded like death warmed up. “I have to keep looking for Shiro. I’m _fi--”_ before he could finish speaking, he broke into another fit of coughs, violent enough to make him double over.

 

Lance mutter a low _quiznak_ , and knelt down beside him to lay a tentative hand on his heaving back. By the time Keith managed to get himself under control, his eyes were glassy with pained tears.

 

     “Let’s get him to the infirmary,” suggested Coran.

 

     “Do you want me to carry you, man?” offered Hunk tentatively.

 

     “No-- I don’t need-- I’m _fine._ ” Keith shrugged off Lance’s hand on his back and stood, only to sway precariously right back into Lance’s side. Lance sighed in frustration, and pulled one of Keith’s arms over his shoulder to support him.

 

He looked at Hunk over Keith’s head and jerked his own in a ‘ _come here and help me with this_ ’ motion, which Hunk obliged by walking over and slotting himself under Keith’s other arm.

 

Keith accepted his fate by dragging his feet all the way to the infirmary, and insisting he was fine even though he had another fit of coughing on the way, which is to say, he didn’t accept his fate at all.

 

Lance and Hunk deposited him on the bench in the infirmary, and then Coran stepped forward with a strange Altean instrument.

 

     “Let’s just do a scan to find out exactly what we’re dealing with. If it comes back clear, you’ll be free to go,” he said cheerfully, waving the instrument over Keith the way a check out operator might scan an item for purchase. It even let out an electronic ‘ _ding_ ’ when it was done.  

 

Huffing and crossing his arms over his chest, Keith scowled at all of them. He sniffed every few seconds, ruining the intimidating effect he was probably going for.

Coran read the result on a data tablet, frowning thoughtfully.

 

     “The good news is that it isn’t anything serious. The bad news is that there isn’t really a quick fix. You need to _rest_ ,” Coran proclaimed.

 

     “So he has a cold?” Hunk injected.

 

     “If a ‘cold’ means that he has a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract, and an elevated core temperature, then yes, he has a cold,” replied Coran.

 

     “I don’t have time to rest. Shiro is out there--” Keith’s voice sounded like he had grit stuck in his throat.

 

     “You aren’t doing yourself or Shiro any favors if you don’t allow yourself to rest and get well,” said Allura firmly, drawing herself to her full height to look down at Keith. It was easy to imagine Allura as the Empress of a planet when she gave someone that look. It was so regal that it kind of made Lance want to take a knee and do whatever she might order.   

 

     “Remember how much I needed to rest after I healed the Balmera?” continued Allura in a gentler tone, “I understand better than anyone the frustration you must be feeling, I _hated_ being sidelined, but you can’t let your wellbeing and health become compromised. You won’t be able to help anyone if you don’t help yourself first.”

 

Allura’s words seemed to reach Keith, finally, and the anger and annoyance he’d been cultivating fell away to reveal what was underneath; _fear_.

 

     “I’m not giving up on Shiro,” he said hoarsely.

 

     “No one’s asking you to,” replied Lance seriously.    

 

Silence fell. Lance could see that Keith was mulling it over, biting his lip, with a crinkle between his eyebrows that he always got when he was thinking hard.

     “Keith, I’ll go out in Green and search for Shiro,” offered Pidge, breaking the silence. “You stay here.”

 

     “But-but--” Keith stammered. It was no secret that Pidge had been working herself just as hard as Keith, in search of some sort of technological solution to find everyone they were missing. Unlike Keith however, she actually ate and slept; Pidge was much easier to wrangle into submission when you wanted to care for her compared to Keith.

 

     “Yeah, I can go meet with the people on Urda myself,” offered Hunk. He and Pidge were meant to go together, but everyone liked Hunk best anyway. He could handle the diplomatic situation there himself.

 

     “And I know you were gonna contact the Blades for an intel update, I’ll do it, and I’ll plot the castle’s new trajectory,” said Lance.

 

     “Guys…” Keith breathed, the word barely a whisper, eyes shiny with emotion.

 

     “Then it’s settled,” said Allura firmly.

 

     “Here, this’ll help,” said Coran, offering Keith a glass of water and a small pink pill.

 

With a rattling sigh, Keith finally accepted his fate, and took the medicine Coran offered.

 

Whatever was in the pill Keith had taken must have been powerful, because he sagged right before their eyes, all the tension he’d been holding draining away as he went limp, blinking up at everyone owlishly.

 

     “Are you sure that was safe for human consumption?” asked Pidge skeptically when Keith started to keel over sideways. Lance had to steady him with a hand on his shoulder to stop him melting right off the bench.

 

     “Of course,” said Coran, “it’s meant to ameliorate the symptoms of-- what did you call it?-- a _cold_ , and promote healing sleeping. It might make him a bit loopy, but he’ll nod right off and be better for it later.”

 

     “Keith, buddy, how you feeling?” asked Lance, crouching a bit so he could peer into Keith’s face.

 

Keith reached up and fisted a hand weakly in Lance’s shirt, trying to tug him… nearer? That couldn’t be right. Confused, but curious as to what Keith was about exactly, Lance let Keith drag him closer. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it sure as heck wasn’t Keith pressing his face into his shoulder.

 

Everyone exchanged confused glances because this sort of behavior was unprecedented from their prickly Red Paladin. He wasn’t a touchy feely guy, or at least, that was what everyone had assumed. He seemed to tolerate Lance’s roughhousing, and Hunk’s spontaneous hugs, and Pidge falling asleep against his shoulder, and Coran squeezing his shoulder, and Allura nudging him to correct his stance on the training deck, but…

 

Keith never _initiated_ touches.

 

     “Keith, you okay?” asked Lance, an awkward laugh bubbling out of his throat as he looked at everyone for guidance. They all looked just as nonplussed as he did.

 

Lance felt Keith nod. Heard him mumble something too low to be understood.

 

     “What was that?” asked Lance, putting his hands on Keith arms to hold him steady. Keith mumbled quietly again, refusing to pull his face away.

 

Lance caught two words. _“Hug?_ ” and “ _please_.”

 

_Oh._

 

     “You want a hug?”

 

Keith nodded.

 

Why did the request, coming in this way, from _Keith_ of all people, put a lump in his throat? Was it because all of them had been able to tell that Keith was hurting in the wake of Shiro’s disappearance? Was it because he’d never once approached anyone for comfort? Or was it because none of them had ever approached him? Lance could see his own expression, shock and sadness, reflected back at him in the faces around him.

 

How had Lance ever thought that Keith was cold? With his head pressed right over Lance’s heart, Keith felt warm. Warm, and fragile.

 

     “O-Okay,” Lance said, still somewhat bemused, but he wrapped his arms around Keith’s shoulders and held him tight anyway.

 

Keith went pliant against him, snaking his arms around Lance’s waist, and just melted into it.

 

Then Keith sniffed, and mumbled something else in the smallest saddest voice Lance had ever heard.

 

     “I-I miss Shiro.”

 

Judging by the stricken looks on everyone’s faces, they had all heard it too.

 

Hunk joined the hug first, wrapping Keith and Lance both up in a warm embrace, and then Pidge climbed up on the bench beside Keith to worm her way into the middle. Coran and Allura joined in too.  

 

     “Thank you,” Lance heard Keith whisper.

 

At some point, Keith fell asleep in his friends’ embrace.

 

Hunk carried him back to his room, and Lance took his shoes off and tucked him into bed.  

 

     “Let’s go pull Keith’s weight so next time he doesn’t feel like he has to carry the whole world on his shoulders,” said Lance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumbler post for this snippet [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/177159410072/hi-can-you-please-write-common-cold-with).


	10. Nightmares - Keith & Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares - Keith & Lance, this one is pretty klancy

Lance was surprised when Krolia pulled him aside. Alone.

He would have thought that she’d want to spend every second she had left as part of their entourage with  _Keith_ , seeing as she was leaving with Kolivan the next morning.

Instead, when everyone else was sufficiently distracted with setting up camp for the night, she grabbed him by the collar, and murmured “come with me,” as if she wasn’t already dragging him anyway. She took him into one of more structurally-sound looking dilapidated buildings.

In the close quarters of a dark room, Krolia looked even more intimidating and formidable than she usually did. Lance felt like a child next to her. For him, it defied all logic that Keith’s mother was this behemoth of a woman, even taller than Shiro, when Keith himself was only just average height by human standards. He wondered what Keith’s father was like…

“Lance,” said Krolia, in her characteristic clipped tone, “as the Red Paladin, you are my son’s second in command, are you not?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s me, Keith’s right-hand-man,” confirmed Lance, puzzled and slightly nervous. It occurred to him that he’d never been alone with Krolia before. She seemed to have as much patience for him as Keith had had in the early days of their acquaintance. That was to say, very little.

The slightly dramatic, cheerful, over-confident front Lance put up to hide how goddam  _scared_  and  _unsure_  he was all the time irritated her, Lance could tell, but being himself wasn’t an option; he didn’t think she’d like him any better as an emotional wreck.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, shifting his weight hesitantly when Krolia only stared at him, those yellow-tinged eyes glowing slightly even in the darkness of the room.

“I need you to look out for Keith when I am gone,” she intoned. Lance blinked, eyebrows crawling up towards his hairline.

“You want  _me_  to–? I mean, of course! That’s my job as his right-hand,” answered Lance, flattered that it was  _him_  of all people, and not say Shiro, or Allura, that Krolia had decided to ask this of.  

Krolia nodded stoically, accepting his words.

“He has nightmares. About Naxela,” she continued.

“Naxela-?” echoed Lance, tilting his head in confusion.

Sure, Voltron and a huge chunk of the universe had nearly been destroyed, but they’d been through similar situations before, and Keith hadn’t even been in the blast radius when everything went down. Of all the things that had happened to them, why would Keith have nightmares about Naxela?

Krolia stared at him like she couldn’t believe he didn’t get it.

“Keith nearly  _died_ ,” she said gravely.

“Keith nearly  _what?!_ ”

This was the first Lance had ever heard of Keith nearly dying on that mission, and just the idea made something constrict painfully in his chest.

Realisation dawned across Krolia’s features as she took in Lance’s confusion.

“He never told…” she murmured, before sighing heavily. Her posture crumpled slightly, and for the first time, Lance could see some motherly softness in her. It was hard to make out around her general fierceness.

“Keith never told  _what?_ ” asked Lance sharply. His jovial facade was very quickly crumbling away, and the shrewd look Krolia leveled at him made him wonder if he’d ever had her fooled at all.  

“Before Lotor destroyed Haggar’s ship, Keith was going to crash into it. On purpose.”

Lance understood immediately.

Keith had tried to die for them. The revelation was like a punch to the gut. All these months had passed -  _years_  for Keith - and he’d never breathed a word to any of them.

That… that  _hurt_  Lance to know.   

“He has nightmares about it,” Krolia repeated.

“Why didn’t he tell us?” asked Lance hoarsely, fists clenched and trembling at his sides.

“I… don’t know,” replied Krolia honestly. “I assumed you all knew… I think  _I_  only know because he couldn’t hide it from me in the Quantum abyss. He must have his reasons for not confiding in any of you. Don’t push him.”

“I-I  _won’t_ , it’s just…”

_He didn’t say anything._

“I need to know that you will look after him,” continued Krolia.

“Why  _me?_ ” asked Lance, mouth dry.

Krolia just looked at him. She looked right through him, and Lance felt heat bloom in his cheeks.

“Right…” he mumbled awkwardly, “don’t worry, I’ll take care of him. I promise.”

He must have said something right because Krolia  _smiled_  at him. It really drove home the resemblance between mother and son; they both rarely smiled, but when they did… it was sort of dazzling.

“Thank you, Lance. You’re a good boy,” she said, pressing a hand against his shoulder for a moment.

* * *

She departed the next morning, leaving Lance crushed underneath the weight of her revelation. He could scarcely think about anything else, leaving him unnaturally subdued as he turned and turned the whole thing over in his head.

He hadn’t spared much thought for Naxela since it had happened. It had been a terrifyingly close call, and it had irked him that they had  _Lotor_  to thank for their lives. Except it turned out that they  _didn’t_  have Lotor to thank for their lives, they had him to thank for  _Keith’s_.

Lance kept himself up at night wondering just how close it had been, and cursing himself for not getting more detail from Krolia. If Keith was  _still_  having nightmares about it, it had to have been a near thing. He wondered why Keith hadn’t said anything. They’d had him on the comms, Lance  _remembered_. Keith could have said something…  _it’s been an honor, boys…_

Lance wanted to bring it up. It felt like the sort of thing that needed to be acknowledged and addressed; Keith had tried to  _die_  for them. It felt important to figure out  _why_. Was it because Keith cared a whole lot more than he let on, or was it because he’d spent so long with the Blade of Marmora that the mission over individual rhetoric had stuck? Had he thought they didn’t need him anymore because he wasn’t an acting Paladin?

Lance  _needed_  to find out, but finding an appropriate time to do so was proving to be difficult.

Firstly, Lance didn’t think that Keith would appreciate it if he blurted it out in front of everyone. He was notoriously private, and tended to lash out when he was backed into a corner. Lance needed to get him alone so they could speak in private, but there wasn’t much privacy to be had seeing as they were living practically on top of one another in their lions.

A few times he got as far as saying “hey, Keith–” only for his damned wolf to teleport between them, or for them to get interrupted by someone else’s presence.

“What did you want, Lance?” Keith would say, and everytime Lance would shrug it off because it was awkward to bring up with Coran puttering around in the Cargo hold behind them, or Hunk cooking lunch.

But in the end, Lance didn’t need to do anything to get Keith alone, because Keith got them alone for him.  

* * *

They landed on a habitable planet with lush forests, and unloaded from their lions to spend the night, and stretch their legs.

Keith made off into the underbrush immediately to collect firewood, Kosmo streaking after him like a bright blue shadow.

Lance heaved a deep sigh; Keith had left so fast that he hadn’t even had a chance to volunteer to tag along before he’d disappeared into the green foliage.

“Lance, can you help me with Kalternecker?” called Coran.

“Stubborn cow…” Lance muttered under his breath, before jogging over to help.

After a lot of tugging and cajoling, they managed to get Kalternecker out of the Blue Lion and happily munching on alien grass.

“Why you gotta be so difficult?” said Lance, staring into Kalternecker’s dopey eyes.

Before Kalternecker could offer a reply, Kosmo popped into existence between them.

Lance shouted in surprise, flinging his arms up defensively, and then Kosmo jumped on him, pressing his paws again Lance’s chest.

“Kosmo! What are you-” Lance tipped and started to fall backwards.

Before he could hit the ground, everything seemed to phase out of existence around him. For a split second he was perfectly still, suspended in nothingness. All he could feel was two warm spots on his chest where Kosmo’s paws rested, and then with a rushing roar, the world snapped back into being.

He hit the ground with a painful thud, knocking all the breath from his body.

“-doing,” he wheezed.

Kosmo filled his field of view, licking his cheeks with a sandpapery tongue.

Lance let out an involuntary giggle, it  _tickled_.

“D-d-d- _down_  boy–” he laughed, pushing weakly at Kosmo’s face.

“Kosmo,  _please_ , let him up” that was Keith’s voice, sounding put-upon, and there was Keith’s frowny face, looming over him.

It struck Lance as extremely comical that Keith talked to his space wolf like that,  _seriously_  like Kosmo was a person that could understand every single word, and he laughed harder. It was endearing, and it shouldn’t have surprised Lance as much as it did; this was the same boy who hadn’t named his wolf for two years because he was waiting for said wolf to  _tell him his name._

With one last slobbery lick, Kosmo obeyed Keith and teleported himself so he was sitting at Lance’s feet.

“Thanks for bringing him,” Keith said to Kosmo.

Wait,  _bringing him?_

Finally able to sit up, Lance could examine his surrounding. Kalternecker was nowhere to be seen, and neither were any of the Lions.

He was in a clearing in the forest, surrounded by a wall of trees and dappled sunlight.  

“Did you just get your space wolf to  _fetch_  me?” said Lance incredulously.

“Yeah…” said Keith sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck, “I’m surprised it even  _worked_ , he never fetches anything else I ask him to get.”

“Right,” said Lance, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. Keith watched him do this, shifting his weight nervously. He’d obviously brought Lance here for a reason, so Lance waited patiently for him to speak. Keith began haltingly, face screwed up like the words were unbearably salty.

“I’ve… I’ve been gone awhile. I guess… things have… changed? Since I’ve been gone?”

“I guess?” answered Lance, puzzled about the direction Keith intended to steer this conversation in. He knew what direction  _he_  wanted to steer this in, but it was only polite to hear Keith out first before Lance brought up personal information his alien mother had divulged without his knowledge or permission.

“You seem… down,” said Keith, staring at him with those big expressive eyes.

“What?” said Lance, utterly perturbed. That was the last thing he expected Keith to say.

“You’ve seemed pretty down,” repeated Keith, taking a step closer to him.

“I spoke to Hunk and it sounds like something happened, or well,  _didn’t_ happen, with Allura?”

Everything in Lance revolted against those words coming out of Keith’s mouth, and he recoiled as if Keith had struck him.

“ _Excuse_  me?”

Grimacing, Keith pressed on.

“Look, I know I’m not the best at-at  _pep-talks_ , or  _comfort_ , but I’m meant to be the leader again, and I just wanted to say-” Keith took a deep breath, “-just because Allura didn’t choose you doesn’t mean someone else won’t-”

“ _Oh my God_. Keith, I need you to stop talking, like,  _right now_ ,” groaned Lance, burying his face in his hands. Lance had experienced acute embarrassment many  _many_  times in his short life, but  _Keith_  of all people trying to comfort him over his failed love life was a whole new category of mortification, even for him.

“Kosmo, take me back to the to others,” Lance begged dramatically. Kosmo tilted his head to the side, gazing at Lance quizzically with those unearthly glowing eyes. Keith was looking at him with much the same expression, complete with the head tilt. Lance would have found it unbearably cute if he weren’t so busy being humiliated.     

“I’m just worried about you, you’ve been weird for the past few weeks,” said Keith. He was dripping sincerity which was making it very hard for Lance to be irritated at him like he wanted to be.

“I’m  _fine_ ,” said Lance shortly.  

“Are you sure? You haven’t been  _acting_  fine… I mean, there are a lot of other girls out there–“

“ _Me estás jodiendo_ – it’s  _YOU_ , you numbskull!” Lance snapped, throwing his hands up.

“ _Me?_ ” it was Keith’s turn to look totally discombobulated. His expression turned pensive, like he was wracking his brains for what he might have done.

“Is this about that weird game show thing with Bob?” he asked slowly, a frown tugging at his lips. “Look,” he continued, “it was a stressful situation, and I was pissed that you said I can’t draw because I’ve  _seen_  your drawings, and  _you_  have have no business telling  _me_  I can’t draw–”

“This is getting off track, we aren’t meant to be talking about whether you can draw or not,” said Lance, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Quit saying I can’t draw!” snapped Keith, bristling like an angry cat.  

“It’s about Naxela,” blurted Lance. Keith’s ire melted away, giving way to confusion.

“ _Naxela?_ ” He repeated. “What about Naxela?”  

“ _UM_ , you tried to fly straight into Haggar’s ship like a Kamikaze pilot!” Lance cried, waving his arms emphatically.  

“So? That was ages ago,” replied Keith, looking at Lance like he was weird for bringing it up. Of all the ways Lance had envisioned this confrontation going down, he hadn’t imagined Keith being so nonchalant.    

“ _Ages ago?_ ” he echoed faintly.

“Yeah, it’s not a big deal.”

“ _Not a big deal?!”_

“Are you just gonna repeat everything I say?” asked Keith, irritation creeping into his voice.  

“Keith, it’s a  _huge fucking deal_ ,” said Lance. It was the most serious thing he’d ever said to him.

“If it weren’t for Lotor–”

“I  _know_ ,” interrupted Keith. “I know…” he repeated, quiet and subdued.

“But that  _didn’t_  happen, so it doesn’t matter.”

Lance could tell from the mulish expression on Keith’s face that he truly meant that.

“If it’s not a big deal, if it doesn’t matter, then why do you still have nightmares about it?”

Keith’s expression faltered, and crumpled. Lance was standing close enough to him to see the way his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and the way his eyelashes fluttered over his suddenly glassy eyes. Lance hadn’t noticed when, but they’d migrated to stand quite close to each other; both of them seemed to have fallen into the gravity of the conversation.

“ _That’s_  why you’ve been acting weird all this time?” asked Keith, clearly trying to change the subject.

“I’ve been trying to bring it up with you since your mom told me about it the day before she left,” confirmed Lance.

“Well, consider it brought up and dealt with. I’m  _fine_ ,” said Keith hoarsely. He looked anything but fine. He looked  _haunted_ , and he was hugging himself like he was trying to keep himself together. Kosmo trotted over and put a paw on Keith’s thigh, letting out a high whine like he was trying to offer comfort.

Lance sighed.

“Keith, what you did, or rather, what you  _tried_  to do for us, it’s a  _big deal_. You should have told us. We should have talked about it.”

“What would the point have been? Why does it matter?” asked Keith stubbornly, but his voice was wavering.     

“Keith, it matters because  _you_  matter,” said Lance, sounding pained.

“I wasn’t a Paladin anymore, then. You guys, the mission, they were  _both_  more important than me, I  _didn’t_  matter.”

“You don’t… you don’t really believe that, do you?” asked Lance desperately, searching Keith’s face. The stubborn jut of Keith’s chin, the guarded, steely look in his big eyes; Lance only found confirmation that yes, Keith  _did_  believe that. It broke Lance’s heart, neatly fractured it in two, that Keith, brilliant, talented, earnest,  _Keith_ , didn’t think he mattered.

He didn’t know whether to yell in his face how wrong he was, or pull him into a hug.

“Are we done here?” huffed Keith impatiently, crossing his arms over his chest. Keith’s defensive posture, his hunched shoulders, it was like watching the shutters snap closed on the window to his soul. Lance knew instinctively that whatever he said now, it would fall on deaf ears. He tried anyway.

“Nearly. I just want to say… we  _all_  have nightmares, Keith. You don’t have to suffer through them alone, if you need me I’m here for you.”

Keith gave a curt nod, before turning on his heel and disappearing into the forest.

Rather than following Keith, Kosmos trotted forward and nudged Lance’s hand with his head. Lance automatically petted his soft fur, tangling his fingers between the strands, and then the forest dissolved around him, and he was back in front of Kalternecker. Before he could blink, Kosmo was gone again.   

Keith stayed gone for a long time, and when he returned his expression was guarded. He avoided being alone with Lance for the rest of their interlude on the forested planet, and then, all too soon, they were loading themselves back into their lions for another long slog to whatever destination Pidge and Coran had routed for them.  

This time he had Kalternecker as his travel companion, and he was glad; Kalternecker wouldn’t question how uncharacteristically quiet he was being and how his expression had fixed itself into a thoughtful frown. Kalternecker was content to munch on her alien hay, and leave him to his thoughts of Keith. He hated how they’d left things. Maybe if he’s said or done or said something differently, Keith wouldn’t have run off. Keith would meet his eye, and Keith wouldn’t seem more withdrawn than ever.

He considered bringing up what had happened with Shiro, but ultimately decided not to because Shiro was still recovering, and none of them had any idea what memories he might have retained from his clone. The last thing Lance wanted to do was cause Shiro undue stress, and a very large part of him revolted at running to Shiro for help like a little kid because  _he_  was supposed to be Keith’s right hand man now. This was something he was supposed to be able to deal with. Besides, Shiro was  _in_  the Black lion  _with_  Keith, so he couldn’t exactly radio in and speak to one without the other hearing everything he said. He could radio Pidge, or Hunk, or Allura, but that didn’t feel right either, talking about Keith behind his back like he was a problem.

Keith was prickly and slow to trust, and Lance liked to think he was one of a very select few that Keith actually let in a little. One of the few people who got to see one of his very rare, genuinely joyful smiles. No, he couldn’t risk betraying Keith’s trust, even if he only had his best interests at heart.

With no other recourse, and in very Keith-like fashion, Lance  _brooded_.

He brooded so hard he couldn’t manage to fall asleep that night, so he ended up leaving his pallet bed, padding out of the cargo bay to sit in Red’s pilot seat, and enjoy the view of endless stars. Red’s cockpit was perfectly warm, the temperature kept downright balmy as per Lance’s preference, but he still felt cold.

All of a sudden, his peaceful but somber solitude was disturbed. Kosmos materialised behind him, bringing Keith in tow. Judging by the yelp Keith let out, the way he landed flat on his ass with a thud, Keith hadn’t been brought here of his own volition.

“Keith!” Lance exclaimed, standing and walking around his seat to hover over him. Kosmo was staring at Lance expectantly, while Keith had his face downturned so his eyes were obscured by his bangs.

“What brings you here?” Lance asked after an awkward beat of silence.

“A  _bad_  dog,” replied Keith, voice especially gravelly and low, even for him.

Lance didn’t know how he managed it, being a space wolf and all, but Kosmo looked at Keith like a parent might look at their misbehaving child while their teacher recounted their misdeeds; disappointed and exasperated.

Kosmos let out a soft whine, and nudged Keith with his head. Nudged Keith towards Lance…

That was when Lance noticed that Keith was shaking.  

“What’s the matter?” asked Lance, approaching Keith and getting down on one knee beside him like he was a skittish cat; slowly and  _carefully._

He set a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and although Keith’s breathing hitched at the light touch, he didn’t immediately push him away which counted as a win.

Lance ducked his head to peer into Keith’s face, and saw that it was crumpled in misery. Keith’s eyes were glassy and red, his lips pressed into a thin tremulous line. The last time Lance had witnessed Keith this small and vulnerable, he’d been grieving for Shiro. Just like last time, something in Lance’s chest couldn’t help but respond to Keith’s distress. Lance was an empathetic person; seeing others’ sadness made him sad too. Lance  _needed_  to soothe him.

“Can I hug you?” he asked.

“I-I don’t need– I’m  _fine_ ,” protested Keith, voice hitching in a way that belied his words.

“I didn’t ask if you  _need_  a hug, or if you’re okay–” it was plainly obvious to Lance that the answer to those questions were respectively yes, and no, “I asked if I can hug you because I want to,” he said simply.   

“Why?” asked Keith, finally looking up at Lance with those big eyes. The confusion swimming in them was heartbreaking.

“Because I love hugs, they always make me feel better when I’m sad, and well, you look sorta sad, Keith. I wanna help you feel better.”

Lance opened up his arms in wordless invitation.

Keith just stared at him for a beat, blinking in bewilderment, and then he moved so fast he was a  _blur_  as he all but threw himself into Lance’s arms. It was as if he was afraid Lance might change his mind if he took too long.

“Easy, I got you,” murmured Lance, catching Keith against his chest, and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. Keith’s hands fisted in the back of Lance’s shirt, and he clung. Folded into Lance’s embrace like this, with only their soft pajamas clothes between them, Keith felt warm and human.

Fragile.

He could feel Keith trembling everywhere they were pressed together. Keith was drawing in short quick breaths like he was trying to calm himself down, ruffling Lance’s hair with every shuddery exhale.

Lance held him  _tighter,_  and rubbed his back. It felt like Keith was holding the tension of the world between his shoulder blades, but as Lance idly pressed his fingers into the knots there, Keith slowly relaxed.

Minutes passed, and neither of them let go. Keith’s breathing evened out, and he stopped shaking so badly.

“Did you have a nightmare?” Lance eventually murmured.

Keith nodded, keeping his face tucked into Lance’s neck.

“About Naxela?” That earned him another nod.

“Do you wanna tell me about it?”

Keith shrugged.

“It’s always the same. It’s  _stupid_ ,” he said gruffly.  

“I’ll listen anyway. And I promise I won’t laugh, even if it is stupid.”

Silence fell again, and lasted for so long that Lance didn’t think Keith would speak.

“Um…” murmured Keith, barely above a whisper.

Lance shifted, intending to set Keith back so he could see his face as he spoke, but Keith’s grip on him didn’t let up. Lance got the message and immediately stopped trying to pull away, letting Keith keep hiding his face.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I just think… maybe it could help? Talking things out makes me feel better,” said Lance.

“Along with hugs?”asked Keith.

“Along with hugs,” Lance confirmed, giving Keith a squeeze. “Don’t you feel better?” he joked weakly.

Keith nodded, and Lance’s heart skipped a beat. Keith took a deep breath, and started to speak.

“So… I’m in the Galra fighter,” he began. Lance had never hung on someone’s words so intently.

“This time… Lotor doesn’t come in time and I– I die, I guess.”

“That’s not stupid, Keith. It’s understandable to have nightmares about it–”

“No, that’s not the part– I mean, this is war. I’ve accepted that I might die,” Keith cleared his throat awkwardly.

“What’s the part that  _is_  bothering you?” asked Lance, inwardly apprehensive. He’d had plenty of nightmares himself of dying in space and never getting to see his family again, Keith shrugging that off, not being bothered by dying… it twisted something up inside him.    

“Um… w-when it happened… Shiro said…” Keith breathing was picking up again, and Lance felt him starting to tense up. Lance didn’t need Keith to finish what he was going to say, Lance _remembered._

“Shiro said ‘good job, Keith,’” breathed Lance.  Keith nodded.

“He said that and– and y-you guys were all ch-cheering but I’d nearly just– a-and I felt–” Keith was shaking again, and Lance’s heart ached.

“Shh, hey, you’re alright,” soothed Lance desperately, but it was no use; Keith had started to cry. He was obviously trying to to stifle himself, only letting out tiny sniffles, but Lance could feel his tears soaking into the fabric of his nightshirt.

“It’s  _stupid_  to feel like this,” Keith choked out vehemently. “It shouldn’t matter, it shouldn’t bother me, but sometimes I dream I-I’m dead a-and y-you’re all cheering and I–I–”

“Listen to me, Keith,” said Lance, low and utterly serious. He pulled back so he could look Keith in the eye, and this time Keith let him. Eyes wet with tears, Keith was the saddest thing Lance had ever seen.

Tutting softly, Lance reached out to brush away the tears with his thumb.   
  
“The way you feel isn’t stupid,” he said, “you tried to die for us, and from your perspective, it sounded like we were celebrating. No wonder you have nightmares about it. You know that if we’d known what you were doing, what you tried to do, we wouldn’t have been cheering right? Shiro wouldn’t have said that.”

Keith shrugged.

“I’m serious, Keith. We  _all_  really care about you, and not just because you’re the Black Paladin and we need you to form Voltron’s head,” said Lance, unable to help himself when it came to inserting a bit of levity into the heavy conversation.

“I hate that you’ve been dealing with this on your own, and I know the others would too. Anytime you have a nightmare, or just need a hug, any of us would be there for you.”

“I wasn’t totally alone, Krolia helped. I hadn’t had any dream that bad in ages, but since she left…” Keith trailed off.

“How did she help?” asked Lance, genuinely curious. Krolia didn’t seem like the comforting sort. Keith’s cheeks turned pink.

“Um… hugs? And she’d, um… she’d tell me…”

“Tell you what?”

“She’d tell me she loved me,” Keith blurted, ducking his head in embarrassment.

“And that helped?”

Keith nodded, shamefaced.

Lance’s answering smile was fond and indulgent.

“I love you, Keith,” he said easily. Keith’s cheeks turned even  _redder_ , and he spluttered indignantly.

“What?! You can’t just–!? You don’t mean– You can’t just  _say_  that–” Lance chuckled.

“Why not? You said it helps to hear it, and it’s true,” he replied. “If you asked the others, they’d say the same thing. We all love you. And you love us, too.”  

While Keith seemingly wrestled with what Lance had said, Lance got to his feet, wincing at the stiffness in his knee after kneeling on it on the hard floor of Red’s cockpit for so long.

“Keith,” he said to get the other boy’s attention, offering him a hand. With a pinched frown, Keith accepted and let Lance haul him to his feet, only Lance didn’t just haul him to his feet, he also pulled him in for one last hug.

“Do you feel better?” Lance asked, hooking his chin over Keith’s shoulder.  

“… yeah,” replied Keith. “Thanks, Lance. I love you, too,” he continued quietly. Something about those words, spoken in Keith’s gruff voice, and with complete sincerity, made a riot of butterflies burst into existence in Lance’s stomach.

Lance drew back and cleared his throat, hoping that the sudden warmth in his cheeks wasn’t visible to Keith.  

“Sooo… next time you have a nightmare what are you gonna do?” Lance prompted.

“Um… ask for a hug?” answered Keith hesitantly.

“Atta boy,” said Lance, beaming and clapping Keith on the back. “Now, are you good to try and get some sleep?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be okay. Thanks, Lance. I’ll just go back to– hang on…” Keith made a show of looking around the cockpit.

“What is it?” asked Lance, but Keith didn’t reply, he darted into the cargo hold, looking around with an air of desperation.

“Did you lose something?” Lance asked haltingly, following Keith through the cockpit door.

“My way back to my bed,” replied Keith grumpily, crossing his arms over his chest.

_Oh._

Kosmos was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s fine, I’m sure Kalternecker won’t mind you bunking with her,” joked Lance, waving an arm at her mound of hay.

Keith gave him a flat, unimpressed look, and then his expression turned sly.

“Last one to your bed has to bunk with Kalternecker!” he exclaimed, and then he was off like a shot, flying across the cargo hold.

“Wha-?  _Hey!_  No fair! I didn’t agree to this!” cried Lance, scrambling to chase after him.

 

 

 

(In the end,  _neither_  of them bunked with Kalternecker, and Lance woke up the next morning with a mop of black hair on his chest, tickling his chin, and Keith’s hand curled into his.)

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me estás jodiendo means, roughly, you’re fucking with me.
> 
> You can find the tumblr post for this drabble [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/177502303607/if-youre-still-doing-the-bad-things-happen)


	11. Damaged Vocal Cords - Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damaged Vocal Cords - Keith, featuring Krolia

If he were anyone else, Krolia would have ended him. She’d done it countless times before, slipped untraceable poison between the lips of a comrade, or a blade between their ribs. She knew how to make it quick and painless, how to make it look like an accident.

And they - the operative who had become compromised - always knew it was coming. Krolia had seen that resignation in many pairs of eyes, a calm acceptance that this was how they would die. That she would bring it about, even though they were comrades in arms.

Knowledge or death, that was the way of the Blade of Marmora. No individual’s life was more important than the mission.

Their ruthless practicality, and an utter lack of sentimentality was  how their organisation had managed to avoid being crushed beneath the weight of Zarkon’s wrath.

So Krolia understood sacrifice. She understood what was at stake.

But when her son looked up at her with the eyes of her beloved, so painfully young, and so ready to die just like the countless blades that had come before him, she couldn’t do it. She barely heard the words of the soldier who had brought him to her over the roaring in her ears.

_“-manually launched an escape pod so the other intruders could escape–”_

“I’ll take him from here,” she said.

“Yes, Captain.”

And then they were alone.

“What are you waiting for, do it.” The first words she got to hear her son say. He couldn’t have picked anything else that would have cut her as deeply.  

She allowed herself a moment to drink in his dear face. She saw her beloved in his features, and herself in the way he held himself. He wasn’t meant to be here.

She hadn’t given up the chance to watch him grow up, the chance to stay with the man she loved, just to destroy the one thing she’d been fighting to protect. At the same time, she knew what was at stake. She knew what would be lost if her son broke during interrogation.  

So instead of killing him, she made it so he couldn’t speak.

She put her gun to his throat, angled carefully, and she pulled the trigger…

 

 

 

She’d never get to hear him call her ‘mom,’ but at least he’d live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/177972215957/ooooh-for-the-bad-things-happen-bingo-damaged).


	12. Bleeding out - Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bleeding out - Keith ft. Lance
> 
> This one is kinda klancy

Lance woke with a startled yelp as if someone had blown a foghorn directly into his ear, rolling off his bed and falling to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs and blankets.

He was panting with exertion, terror pounding through his veins with every thundering heartbeat.

     “S’fine… everything’s fine…” he mumbled to himself, looking around his shadowy quarters anxiously, checking that everything was in place. His room looked like it always did; orderly for the bedroom of a teenage boy

Did he have a nightmare? He couldn’t remember.

It took Lance a few seconds to realise that the alarm, the fear filling his his chest and making it hard for him to breathe, it wasn’t his own.  

     “Red?” he murmured.

Where Blue had been like a gentle stream, their bond meandering peacefully through Lance’s mind, Red was like fire. Most of the time, Red’s fire was a merrily burning bonfire, glowing with warmth, but other times, Red felt like this.  _Wild_. A fire that would consume everything until there was only ash.

When Red was like this, it meant something was seriously wrong.

Even though Lance was the Red paladin now, he found himself pouring cool water over their bond, waves of calm, just like Blue used to do for him, as he got up and dressed.

     “What’s wrong?” he asked mentally, running through the darkened hallways of the castle to get down to Red’s hangar, bayard in hand.  

The lions didn’t communicate with words, mostly feelings and images, and Lance found that when Red was harried or upset, it became more difficult to parse what he meant.

_Urgency. Hurry hurry **hurry.**_

He couldn’t quite understand why Red needed him to hurry, but Lance trusted his lion. He picked up the pace, sprinting full pelt into the hangar.

He’d left Red sitting upright, tail curled around his body, the last time he’s flown. When he arrived, Red was up and pacing.  

The second he was through the doors, Red bounded over to him, mouth open, ready to scoop him up.

And then he was in the pilot seat, and Red was forcing himself through the closed hangar doors. He ripped them right off their hinges before Lance could even get his hands on the controls.

     “ _Woah_ , boy. I could have opened–”

_No time._

Red flew into the void of space so fast that Lance was plastered to the back of his seat under the force of it.   

To Lance’s shock, a wormhole opened up ahead. Red charged full steam towards it, and it spat them out in a scene of devastation.  

     “Oh my  _god_ …” breathed Lance, eyes as wide as saucers.

There had been a Galra destroyer here, and it had been blown to pieces. In the far distance there was a warm red sun, casting warm shadows over twisted black metal. There was a planet nearby, as red as it’s sun. It made Lance think of Mars.

     “What are we looking for, Red?” murmured Lance.

Apparently whatever it was wasn’t there amongst the floating wreckage, because Red turned and headed straight for the planet.

They exploded into the atmosphere, and Lance could see far below that there was a scar maring the planet’s rather uniform surface. An ugly grey scar caused by impact.

As they sped closer, Lance could make out that it was another Galra destroyer.

Red landed heavily enough to make Lance’s teeth rattle in his head, digging his claws into the red dirt. This close, the Galra destroyer loomed over them, dwarfing red. The side was completely ripped open, letting Lance see the labyrinth of corridors within.  

They were right beside a large section that was ripped open like a gutted fish, debris scattered around the open wound like entrails. Lance could see structures within, corridors and rooms, like damaged organs.

_There. Out. Get him **out.**_

Lance gasped as understanding flooded his brain -  _Keith._  Red had brought him here for Keith.

Keith was in there somewhere, buried in the smouldering wreckage of the dead, broken ship, and he was in trouble.

But the destroyer was huge, even just the broken piece Red had brought him to; Lance couldn’t just search blindly. And judging by Red’s franticness, he didn’t have the time.

_I will guide you. **Go.**_

Red leaned up, bracing her great paws on the lower deck of the destroyer so he could open his mouth and deposit Lance on the upper levels. Bayard clutched tightly in his hands, Lance leapt from Red’s mouth. He stumbled a little on the broken, slanted floor of the destroyer, but he managed to recover himself and take off at a sprint.

He was lucky that the lights seemed to be functioning still, bathing the warped corridors in sickly violet light, or it would have been pitch dark.

There was a distant roar that let Lance know that at least part of the destroyer was on fire, and he pushed himself to run  _faster._

_Here._

Red had led him to some sort of control room, where a wall on the far side had caved in. Lance heard Keith before he saw him; a series of pained whimpered emanated from the beneath the wreckage.

     “Keith! Is that you?” Lance called, rushing towards the sound. Lance heard sniffing.

     “L- _Lance?”_

He’d never heard Keith use a tone of voice like that. He’d never heard him sound so small and hurt.

     “Yeah, it’s me buddy. I’m here to get you out. How you doing?” Lance kept his voice low and soothing even though internally he was panicking a little.

He couldn’t see Keith at all, it looked like the whole ceiling had come down on top of him.

He began shifting aside some of the smaller debris in an attempt to locate Keith.

     “A-are you r-really here?” whimpered Keith. Lance didn’t like how thin Keith’s voice sounded…

     “Sure am, Red knew you were in trouble and woke me up.”

_There,_  Lance could see a gloved hand poking out of the debris. There was a particularly large section of metal from the ceiling covering the rest of Keith. Lance needed to move it to get to him…  

     “I’m sorry,” said Keith.

     “Keith, you have nothing to be sorry for–”

     “I l-left. I’m s-so  _sorry.”_

To Lance’s dismay, Keith started to cry. Or maybe he’d already been crying, and he was just continuing from where Lance had interrupted him.  

     “Th-thanks for looking after Red. You were a great right hand,” he said wetly, sniffing all the while.

     “Woah, woah,  _woah,”_  said Lance, alarm spiking through his blood at the tone of that sentence. The  _finality_  of it.  

     “Keith, I’m gonna get you out of here,” said Lance, low and serious.

     “I-I’ll miss the others. Glad you’re here, but… I-I wish I could h-have seen the o-others too.” Keith’s voice was so thready, so fragile.

     “ _Don’t_ , Keith.” snapped Lance. “Anything you want to say to anyone you can say  _yourself_  when I take you back to the castle,” he continued sternly, even though internally he was panicking.

He needed to get Keith free  _now._

Getting a firm grip on the edge of the metal sheet, Lance heaved with all his might. He managed to tip it over, and it crashed back to the floor loudly on its otherside.  

The good news was now he could see Keith, limbs splayed out like a broken doll.

The bad news was that now he could see an inky halo pooled around his body. The sudden tang of rust and salt in the the air gave away what it was; blood.  _Keith’s_ blood, rendered almost black under the sickly violet lights. There was so much…

If Lance thought that hearing Keith’s broken voice was heartbreaking, it had nothing on seeing his face. He was so pale, with tears dripping down the sides of his face and his lower lip trembling. He looked  _scared._  Lance had never seen him look scared before.  

Lance fell to his knees beside him, uncaring of the fact that liquid was soaking into the fabric of his pants…

     “I’m gonna carry you out of here, you only need to hold on a little longer, okay? Where are you hurt?” asked Lance, pressing a hand to one of Keith’s damp cheeks. He felt so cold…

     “M-my back,” Keith whimpered.  

Fuck. Fuck fuck  _fuck,_ his back? What if he moved Keith and that made his injuries worse?

     “Which part?” asked Lance, keeping his voice as steady as he could make it. He had to be strong for him.

     “L-left side. Something’s s- _stabbing_  me. Fell on it.”

Lance gently slipped a hand underneath Keith’s head, cupping the back of his neck.

     “I’m sorry, this might hurt,” he said, lifting Keith a fraction and leaning over him to peer at his left side.

Keith let out a groan of pain, and Lance could plainly see why. There was a metal strut embedded in his body, stuck in his lower back.

     “I’m sorry, I’m  _sorry_ , you’re gonna be okay-” Lance soothed mindlessly as his thoughts raced.

He knew that if he pulled the object out, Keith would bleed out faster and he’d already lost so much blood, but the metal struct was connected to the floor and he didn’t have the equipment necessary to cut it free so leaving it in wasn’t even a viable option… There were tools in Castle. Maybe he could go back, get something and–

**_No time. Bring now._**  Interrupted Red.

Red was right, Keith was fading fast. That would take too long and Lance hated the idea of leaving him by himself anyway.

     “Keith? I’m gonna count to three, and then I’m gonna pick you up okay? It’s really gonna hurt, I’m really sorry, and I’m gonna run back to the Red to get you back to the castle as fast as I can which will probably hurt you too, and  _I’m really sorry_ ,” Lance rambled.

     “Okay,” replied Keith weakly.

Lance wasn’t ready for this, but the puddle of blood around Keith’s body was growing bigger, so he  _had_  to.

     “Alright then, on three. One-” He slid his hand that wasn’t cupping Keith’s neck underneath his knees.

     “-two-” he looked Keith in the eye, and Keith stared back at him, blinking dazedly.

     “-three.”

The sound of the strut leaving the wound was sickening, and the sound of pain that left Keith’s mouth was agonized. It made  _Lance_  tear up a little.

     “Lance,  _hurts,_ ” Keith choked out. He didn’t make any move to resist when Lance hauled him up into his arms, even though he made more pained sounds. Lance held him chest to chest, with Keith’s head resting limply on his shoulder so he could avoid putting any strain on his wound.

     “I know, I know. C’mon, I got you, just hold onto me,” pleaded Lance, while Red screamed at him to come back  _now._

Keith managed to flop his arms around Lance’s neck, but actually holding on seemed to be beyond him at that point. His puffs of breath felt too shallow against Lance’s skin, but there was nothing he could do about it. Lance just had to get him back to the castle before he bled out.   

He ran back the way he came, fear and adrenaline giving him speed and strength.

The minute he got into Red and sat down in the pilot seat, Keith on his lap because they were in a hurry and he didn’t exactly have anywhere else to put him, they were  _off_.

Red sped back through the wormhole and back to the castle under his own power, while Lance frantically tried to hail someone. As he pressed buttons, he ended up smearing Keith’s blood all over the dashboard; they’d become soaked from holding Keith. It was hard to believe that Keith even had any more blood  _left_ , but Lance clung to tiny rattling puffs of air he felt against his collar which showed that Keith was breathing. Keith was alive.

     “Come in! Coran?  _Allura?!_ ” he yelled the moment he got the com-link connected.

     “Lance? What are you doing outside the castle? How did you open that wormhole?” it was Coran. “The doors of the Red lion’s hangar have been–”

     “Keith is hurt! He needs a pod, he’s lost too much blood!” Lance screamed, interrupting.

Thankfully, Coran didn’t question him about where he’d been, or how he had Keith. He got right down to business, voice uncharacteristically grave.  

     “Allura will meet you in Blue’s Hangar. He may need a blood transfusion, the cryopods can’t replenish lost fluids easily. Do you know if–”

     “I’ll donate, I’m universal for humans,” interrupted Lance.  

Minutes later they soared through Blue’s hangar doors, and Red slowed down and landed lightly so as to avoid jostling Keith needlessly.

Lance barely had time to stand, an unconscious Keith gathered into his arms, before Allura was there. She was still wearing her nightgown.

She gasped at the sight of them, but then she seemed to steel herself, and she took Keith’s limp body from Lance as if he weighed no more than a child.

Together they ran.

Even without the burden of Keith’s weight, it was difficult for Lance to keep up with the pace Allura set.

The fabric of his clothes clung to him unpleasantly, wet and sticky with Keith’s blood.

In the infirmary Allura laid Keith out on one of the the beds, and then she and Coran buzzed around him in a flurry of frantic life-saving activity.

     “Lance, sit there,” barked Allura, pointing where she wanted him.

While Coran carefully cut Keith out of his Marmora suit, revealing bruises upon bruises, Allura had Lance hold out his left arm so she could attach something that looked like a blood pressure cuff to him.

A needle came next, and then there was a tiny prick, and Lance watched as his blood was siphoned away through a clear tube, into a clear bag.

     “Keep your arm straight, and squeeze this,” said Allura, handing Lance something similar to a stress ball. Lance did as he was told.

     “How much can we safely take?” asked Coran.

     “Take as much as you need,” replied Lance.

     “No more than 12%,” said Allura sternly.

By the time they had taken enough of Lance’s blood, performed the transfusion to Keith, and loaded him into a cryopod, Lance’s clothes were dry and crusty. Allura removed the needle from his arm, and pressed a bandaid over the small puncture.

     “He’s going to be fine,” Coran proclaimed. Lance was so relieved that he slumped forwards in his seat to press the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to prevent himself from weeping in relief. He managed it, just.

     “Lance, what happened?” asked Allura carefully, crouching in front of him.

     “Red woke me up and took me to him,” replied Lance, sounding dreadfully hoarse. He surreptitiously rubbed at his eyes before dropping his hands from his face completely.

     “He was on a crashed Galra destroyer, and a ceiling had collapsed on him.”

     “Are you hurt at all, Number Three?” asked Coran.

Lance shook his head.

     “How long will he be in there?” Lance asked, gazing at the cyropod.

Keith looked so small and still, so  _wrong._

     “A quintant or two I should think. You did very well getting him back as quickly as you did,” said Coran.

     “I think we’d better contact the Blade,” said Allura.

     “How about you two go clean up first,” suggested Coran delicately, and that was when Lance realised that much like him, Allura’s clothes were stained with blood.

     “Alright, I’ll meet you in the control room. Lance, you should drink something and then you should rest. We took quite a lot of your blood, you’ve done enough for tonight,” said Allura.  

     “Alright,” agreed Lance, mostly because now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he was hit by a wave of exhaustion.

He dragged himself to the showers to clean himself up, and had a glass of water before collapsing back into bed and passing out.

When he woke again, it felt like everything that had happened was some sort of nightmare, however the blood-stained clothes in the corner of his room proved otherwise…

Thankfully Allura and Coran had already informed everyone else what had happened so Lance wasn’t required to rehash it again.

Hunk cooked him a big breakfast, and Pidge hoovered by his side, ostensibly tapping away on her laptop while she snuck glances at him.

All of them headed to the infirmary together after Lance had eaten, which was where they found Shiro, staring up at Keith with a pained expression.

     “Thank you for getting him out, Lance,” said Shiro, laying his human hand on his shoulder, and giving him a weak smile and a bracing squeeze.

     “Did anyone manage to get ahold of the Blades to figure out what Keith was doing there while I was out?” asked Lance.

Everyone’s expressions visibly darkened.

     “They said he didn’t make it to the rendezvous point in time, so they left him for dead,” said Hunk.

There was silence for a moment.

     “I don’t want him to go back to the blades,” said Lance bluntly.

Pidge and Hunk’s gazes swivelled to Shiro, who sighed heavily.

     “It isn’t our decision to make,” he said.

     “Well then we need to convince him to make the decision to stay,” said Lance stubbornly.  

     “It isn’t fair for us to pressure him to do what we want,” said Shiro evenly.

     “Look, when I was watching him bleeding out, he said he was sorry for leaving. He said he’d miss you all, that he wished he could see everyone again.”

Everyone’s expressions fell, and Shiro’s Galra hand clenched into a very tight fist.

     “I don’t think he  _wants_ to go, I think he just needs to know that he has a place here, even if he isn’t currently piloting a lion,” said Lance softly.   

     “Of course he has a place here!” cried Hunk tearfully, staring at Keith in the cryopod like he wanted to yank him out and hug and life out of him.

     “I don’t want him to go back to the Blades either,” admitted Shiro.

     “So it’s settled, we’re telling him he’s staying,” said Pidge.

     “ _Pidge,_ ” chided Shiro.

     “We’ll  _ask_  him to stay,” amended Lance.

* * *

(Two days later when Keith woke, pleasantly surprised to find that Lance showing up and saving him  _hadn’t_ been a figment of his imagination, the others sat him down and  _asked_  him to stay.

He cried.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr link to this excerpt [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/178134986507/hey-can-i-get-in-a-request-for-one-of-your-bingo).


	13. Hiding an injury - Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hiding an injury - Keith

It was hard to breathe.

During his last mission, Keith had been slammed into a wall when the ship he had infiltrated depressurized, and he had felt something  _snap._  Maybe several somethings. A ceiling may or may not have collapsed on top of him…

But he was  _fine._

It was just a  _little_  hard to breathe. He could still breathe, which was what mattered. It just hurt a bit, (a lot), and he had to keep his inhales shallow, but it wasn’t like he  _needed_ to breathe deeply just then anyway.

He was  _fine._

The fact that his current mission was to go back to the Castle of Lions and deliver some intel had absolutely nothing to with it. He wasn’t going to the infirmary because he didn’t  _need_  to,  _not_  because he really  _really_  wanted to be on that mission. He definitely  _wasn’t_ avoiding the infirmary because if he was stuck in a cryopod he couldn’t go, and they’d send someone else in his place.

He wasn’t desperate for meaningful human contact at all, and the injury wasn’t even that bad, and that was that.  

* * *

     “Huh, you’re a little short for a Blade, aren’t you?” joked Lance by way of greeting when Keith gingerly stepped out of his transport.

Lance was the only one there…

It was impossible for Keith to stop his heart from falling in disappointment. Of course he was glad to see Lance’s face, but he’d really wanted to see the others too. He’d thought that maybe when Kolivan told them who was coming, they’d come down and speak to him… In hindsight Keith realized that it was a foolish expectation. Everyone was busy,  _of course_  it was too much to expect them to abandon what they needed to do for the war effort just to see him.  

     “That  _is_  you right, Keith?” Lance continued, a hint of uncertainty creeping into his voice, and Keith knew it was because he wasn’t moving like himself. He was stiff, sore, and he had to force himself to drop his hand from where it was pressing against ribs in a bid to alleviate the discomfort he felt when he tried to get more air than his ribs were comfortable with.    

Lance still looked slightly concerned so Keith forced himself to stand straighter even though it hurt.

He schooled his face to make sure that none of his discomfort showed before dematerializing his mask.

     “Who  _else_  would I be?” he asked.  

Lance squinted at him for a moment, giving him a once over.

     “Good point, no other sentient being would ever purposefully wear their hair like that,” he teased.

Keith’s answering smile wanted to go wobbly, he’d  _missed_  this so much, teasing, banter,  _familiarity_ , but he forced himself to roll his eyes instead like he used to when Lance made comments like that.

     “Here’s the intel,” he said, pulling a data chip of out one of his pouches, and offering it to Lance. No use in fishing to stick around when everyone was busy and getting on with things without him.

     “Nope,” said Lance cheerfully. “The mission brief said you had to deliver it to the control room, Keith. Man, what are the Blades  _teaching_ you? Trying to shirk your duty like that.” His tone was still light and teasing.

Keith’s brows furrowed in confusion.

     “What?” he said, while Lance just looked at him, eyes dancing with mirth. As usual, Keith didn’t get the joke.

     “Follow me. Not that you  _need_  me to show you the way, you  _know_  the way,” said Lance, muttering the last part to himself.

He turned on his heel and started walking towards and elevator like a parent that had just told their kid if they didn’t come  _now_ , they would be left behind, and like a child, Keith lurched to catch up.

     “Why do I have to take it when  _you_  could just take it?” he protested once they were both in the elevator.

It wasn’t that he was complaining, he was secretly glad he’d get to see the others after all, it was just… oddly inefficient.

     “You’ll see,” said Lance with his trademark knowing smirk.

Keith didn’t have time to question him further before they arrived and the doors swished open.

     “ _Surprise!_ ” yelled six voices in tandem, throwing colorful confetti and streamers in his face.

Keith gasped in surprise, drawing in way more air than he should of, and his ribs  _screamed._

Hunk closed in on him and threw his arms around him, hugging him so tightly that his feet were lifted clear off the floor, and then Keith was screaming for real. The pressure on his ribs was unbearable. Something snapped, other things inside him that weren’t meant to ground together, and overall it felt like he was being stabbed in the lungs.

The vice like pressure of Hunk’s arms went away quickly, and without it, Keith folded in on himself like a collapsing house of cards.

He couldn’t breathe anymore. He was  _drowning_  in his own lungs, doubled over on his knees, with the panicked voices of his friends floating around him. They sounded warped and far away, as if he was hearing them from underwater.

     “Keith-!”

_“Keith-?!”_

     “I-I d-didn’t mean to-”

     “Sit him  _up-!”_

     “I don’t think he can breathe!”

Someone was touching him, holding him from behind, forcing his uselessly body to move, and it hurt, it hurt  _so much_ ,  but then he was upright.

As if all he needed all along was this change in angle, he immediately started to cough his guts up. It felt like every retch was hammering nails into his lungs, but his mouth filled with liquid and the familiar tang of metal, and suddenly, with a rattling breath, he could get air again.

Just thin raspy wheeze, but it was better than that terrifying  _nothing_  he’d been able to draw in earlier.

Keith’s vision curled around the edges, blackening like the charcoal edges of smoldering piece of paper.

     “We have to get him to a pod,” that was Shiro, crouched in front of him and staring into his face with fear and concern.

     “M’fine,” Keith managed to choke out, sending himself into another painful coughing fit. Someone rubbed his back, and a soft hand smoothed his hair out of his face.

He might have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knew he was staring up at the lights on the ceiling of the infirmary. Everything still hurt, but now he was cold; someone had rolled his suit down to his hips.   

     “-ready yet, Coran?” Shiro again, sounding urgent.

     “Nearly, give me a tick, just have to calibrate,” Coran replied.

     “I don’t understand why they would send him in this condition, I  _know_  the Blades have technology at  _least_  as good as ours for healing,” said Allura. She sounded tearful.

Keith tried to sit up, and failed miserably. He barely managed to lift himself a millimeter before his body gave out, wrenching a whine of pain out of throat.  

     “Woah, woah, woah, don’t move,” ordered Lance, appearing above him with concerned blue eyes.   

Keith faded out again.

The  _next_ time he woke, gravity rushed up to greet him and he fell forward, right into a waiting pair of warm arms.

_“Keith.”_

     “…Shiro?” he was groggy and slow to answer.

     “It’s me,” Shiro confirmed.

     “Is he alright?” that was Hunk’s voice, and he sounded tearful

Keith’s eyes blinked open, and over Shiro’s shoulder he saw everyone.

Hunk, Lance, Pidge, Allura, Coran, and they were all staring at him with concern.

     “I’m fine,” he said, wriggling a bit to get Shiro to let go of him. Shiro acquiesced to his unspoken wishes and stepped back. Everyone was staring at him.

It made Keith feel naked, the way they were all looking at him.

     “Do you know why you’re here?” asked Shiro carefully.

Keith had to think for a moment, casting his mind back through the fog of the cryopod…

     “I was meant to deliver intel from the Blades.” Keith’s face fell. Well… he’d fucked up this mission entirely hadn’t he?

     “I’m–I’m sorry,” he said.

     “What are you sorry for?” asked Shiro, voice carefully neutral.

Keith opened his mouth, but no words came out.

     “Why don’t you go get changed, and then come meet us in the rec room?” suggested Shiro gently.

The others all looked at Shiro in unwelcome surprise, and he gave them a quelling look in return that said ‘let me deal with this.’ The interplay served to make Keith feel like he was being handled. Keith cringed, hunching in on himself.

He hated being the centre of attention, he hated feeling like he was a burden, and those two things that were currently happening to him.

     “I’m fine, guys. There’s no need– I can show myself out–” he said.

     “What!?”

_“What?!”_

     “ _Excuse_  me?!”

     “You think you can just  _go?!_ ”

The collective outburst was loud, and it startled Keith so badly he flinched.  

     “Everyone, calm down,” said Shiro sternly. “Keith, come with me. Everyone else,  _rec room_.”

There was a reason that Shiro was Black Paladin. When he spoke, everyone deferred.  

Once he and Shiro were alone and trotting side by side towards Keith’s old room, Keith spoke.

     “How long was I out for?” he asked.

     “Two days,” answered Shiro.

Keith winced. He’d definitely exceeded allotted time for the mission, Kolivan wouldn’t be happy.  

     “Wash up, and get changed Keith, I know from experience that the cryopods make you feel sort of grimy. Take your time, then come meet us.”

     “Are you sure that’s necessary?” asked Keith, “I’m not really in the mood for a lecture in front of everyone,” he grumbled.  

     “Keith…” Shiro leveled him a look that Keith couldn’t quite decipher.

     “Come to rec room when you’re ready.  _Please_ ,” he said firmly, and then he left Keith to it.

A shower and a change of clean clothes later, Keith walked to the rec room, trepidation pulsing through his veins. He felt like he was walking towards his gallows.

He knew he’d screwed up, but he hadn’t mean to cause any problems. He hadn’t meant to be an inconvenience. Kolivan was already going to chew him out, couldn’t they just let him go?

When he got to the door, he could hear the low thrum of voices on the other side. Taking a deep breath to fortify himself, and, Keith pressed the button to open the door.

The moment it swished open, all chatter on the other side ceased, and all eyes were on him.  

     “Come, take a seat, number four,” said Coran. Everyone was sitting on one side of the sunken settee, obviously intending for him to sit down on the opposite side to face them. The positioning made him feel antsy, like he was walking into an interrogation.

     “Look, Kolivan was expecting me back like a day ago, I should probably leave–”

     “We’ve been in contact with the Blades. Don’t worry, Keith,” cut in Allura smoothly.

     “Okay… so… what’s going on then?” asked Keith haltingly, gingerly taking a seat.

     “Your injuries were very serious, Keith. Even before…” Allura’s gaze flickered to Hunk, whose face was pinched in misery, and she seemed to think better of what she had been about to say.

     “Will you tell us why you didn’t seek out medical attention?” she asked. That… wasn’t what Keith had been expecting.

     “I guess… I didn’t think it was that bad,” he replied.

     “You didn’t think it was ‘ _that bad?!’_  Keith, your  _lung_  collapsed. You couldn’t  _breathe_ ,” blurted Pidge, aghast.

     “I could breathe enough,” Keith snapped defensively.

     “No you couldn’t!” cried Lance. “Look, I don’t know how you found out because Kolivan said he wouldn’t tell you, but you shouldn’t have compromised your health just to come back for a  _Birthday Party_ , we could have done it another time–” Keith blinked.

     “Birthday Party?” he questioned, tilting his head to the side.

     “… Is he serious right now?” asked Pidge, squinting at him.

     “Whose birthday party was it?” asked Keith. Everyone stared at him.

     “ _Dude_ , it was  _yours!_ ” cried Lance. With a jolt, Keith remembered how everyone on the bridge had yelled surprise at him. He remembered the colorful confetti, and how Hunk had swept him up into a great big hug.He thought hard for a moment, converting the Galactic calendar into Earth’s…

     “Oh,” he whispered.

     “Keith, If you didn’t know about the party, why did you come to the castle even though you were so badly injured?” asked Shiro gently.  

     “For… for the mission,” replied Keith.

Everyone just looked at him the same way someone might look at a soaking wet, shivering kitten; pitying with an edge of fond exasperation.

     “Keith, it wasn’t a real mission,” said Allura, “it was contrived as an excuse to bring you here unaware of our plans. If you thought it  _was_  a real mission, why would you come when it was obvious you were not fit to do so?”

     “Kolivan would have just sent another operative in your place if you couldn’t do the mission,” added Coran.

To Keith’s horror, his eyes started to fill with moisture. He quickly stared down at his lap, clasping his hands together tightly

     “I… I _know_  he would have sent someone else,” he muttered brusquely.  

     “Then why did you come?” asked Shiro.

     “It’s stupid,” he mumbled.

Even though he was staring at his lap, which was blurring before his eyes, Keith could feel the collective weight of everyone’s expectant gazes on him.

     “I just… I just wanted to see you guys,” he admitted quietly, blinking rapidly in an effort to prevent his tear-filled eyes from spilling over.

     “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, um, waste everyone’s time or–or cause any inconvenience. Won’t h-happen again.” His voice hitched pathetically, and Keith wished that the ground would open up and swallow him whole.  

     “S-so can I go now, or–”

Keith was cut off when someone dropped into the seat beside him, and drew him into their arms. Hunk had never hugged him so carefully before.

     “We’ve missed you too, Keith,” he said simply.

It was as if Keith’s body took the words as permission to break, because there was no holding back the tears now. They slipped down his cheeks and soaked into Hunk’s shirt, but Hunk was kind enough not to mention it.

     “Don’t hog him, Hunk. The rest of us want a turn too,” called Lance.

It left Keith a little frazzled, being passed from one set of arms to another as everyone crowded around to hug him, but mostly it made him feel really happy.

     “Come on Birthday boy, Hunk’s been wanting to feed you your weight in cake since you got here,” said Lance, hooking their elbows together to drag Keith towards the kitchen.

     “We still need to talk about this some more, but for now I _do_  think some cake is in order,” said Shiro, ruffling his hair fondly. 

* * *

When Keith returned to the blades much  _much_  later, it was with a much lighter, yet somehow fuller, heart. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/178591416707/for-the-bad-things-bingo-can-i-just-slide-in).


	14. Sleep Deprivation - Keith & Lance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleep Deprivation - Keith & Lance
> 
> This one is pretty klancy

 

How long had he been awake for? **  
**

Long enough for his eyes to feel dry and heavy. Long enough for his thoughts to become slow and difficult to connect, as if they were swimming through sticky molasses. Long enough for time to lose meaning.

Time didn’t matter anyway, and neither did sleep. Distance was much more important to Keith; the distance he had searched, and how far he still had left to go to completely check the wreckage of their last battle against Zarkon.

He hadn’t found anything yet, so obviously he hadn’t been searching for long enough. He hadn’t covered a wide enough distance. He couldn’t stop, not when Shiro was out there, needing to be rescued.

Because that was the only thing that mattered: finding Shiro.

Red disagreed.  _Emphatically_. And eventually, Keith was literally too exhausted to stop Red from taking control and flying them back to the castle.

“Red, c’mon, I’m fine,” he pleaded, eyes barely able to focus on his hands gripping the controls right in front of him.

They landed in the hangar and cockpit went dark, Red’s way of telling him to go cool off.

“Fine,” Keith growled.

He would get himself a bowl of goo because he couldn’t remember the last time he ate, and then if Red wouldn’t let him back in, he’s take the shuttle out instead.  

* * *

Lance was up early. Sleep hadn’t come easy, and had been even harder to cling to with Shiro missing, and Keith refusing to come back to the castle when Allura had called it. 

Lance wondered if Keith had returned yet as he padded to the kitchen. He got his answer when he immediately, for there Keith was, crashed at the kitchen table with a bowl of untouched food goo in front of him and his head pillowed on one arm.

He was still in his armor, hadn’t even taken his  _helmet_ off, and when Lance touched the edge of his bowl, it was still warm. Keith must have only just returned. 

Had he been search for Shiro all that time? It made Lance a little sick with worry to contemplate.

Lance sighed. “Dumb Mullet, what are we gonna do with you?” he whispered, while Keith slept on obliviously.   

Lance couldn’t take how uncomfortable Keith looked; he was going to get a crick in his neck and a sore back sleeping like that. And he _needed_  the sleep if the dark bruises under his eyes were any indication.

As if he were playing a high-stakes game of jenga, Lance maneuvered the bowl of goo out of Keith’s loose grip. Keith slept on, blissfully unaware of Lance’s presence.

“Keith…?” he murmured quietly, prodding Keith in cheek gently. He didn’t even stir, totally dead to the world.

Feeling buoyed by that success, Lance removed Keith’s helmet with the careful precision of a surgeon performing heart surgery, slow and steady… That didn’t rouse him either.

Carrying Keith to his room was a job better suited to Hunk, but seeing as Lance was the only one around, he’d do it.

He crouched down in front of Keith, taking him by the shoulder and shifting his weight so he was leaning against Lance instead of the table. In sleep, Keith obeyed the gentle suggestions of Lance’s hands easily, arms slumping over Lance’s shoulders,  head lolling bonelessly into the crook of Lance’s neck, all without even changing the cadence of his breathing. If only he were always this pliant…

“Here we go…” Lance murmured, wrapping his arms around Keith, one around his waist and one under his bottom, hefting him up.

Keith was dead weight, but he still didn’t feel as heavy as he ought to; it shouldn’t have been so easy for Lance to hold him. When Keith was awake he was larger than life; it was confronting that Lance was so easily able to swallow Keith up in his arms.  

Keith’s breath tickled Lance’s neck as he carried him to their sleeping quarters, gently breezing through the ends of his short hair. Lance did his best to ignore how close Keith’s lips were to his neck, and how warm those tiny puffs of air were…

When he got to Keith’s room, he realized they had a problem: opening Keith’s door required Keith’s code, and finding out the code from Keith would mean waking him, something Lance really wanted to avoid. 

If he were Pidge, he would probably be able to hack it, but he wasn’t.

After a moment of deliberation, he decided to just put Keith in his own room. The day was only starting for him, not like he needed his bed right then.

Lance shuffled down the corridor to his door, hitching Keith a little higher in his arms to make sure he was balanced against his chest, before taking a hand off of Keith’s back to tap in his code.

The door swished open, and Lance took Keith inside.  

He laid Keith down on his bed, and Keith immediately went ahead and made himself comfortable, sighing and sleepily nuzzling Lance’s pillow.

Lance sighed again. It wasn’t fair, why’d he have to be so  _cute?_ The worst part was, Keith never did any of it on purpose. He was always, _somehow_ , effortlessly adorable, which was a completely inappropriate thought for Lance to be having. They’d _just_ lost Shiro, and he’d  _just_ put Keith to sleep in his own bed because he’d passed out from sheer exhaustion.

His useless pining was a very low priority, so Lance pushed those thoughts away and forced himself to consider practicalities.

Practicalities like: Keith sleeping in his armor. Lance had been too lazy to take off his armor exactly once, and he’d regretted it so hard; he’d never woken so sore and stiff in his life.

That was his justification for unclipping Keith’s breastplate, and stripping it off him. He went ahead and removed the rest of the hard parts of armor systematically. The motions were automatic now, deft and impersonal; he did this to himself everyday.   

The black flight suit wasn’t ideal as far as pajamas went, but it’d do.

He pulled the blankets up to Keith’s chin, and just because he couldn’t resist, brushed a hand through the front of Keith’s hair. Swept it off his forehead affectionately like his mother used to do to him.

It was that gentle touch, not carrying him, not partially undressing him, that roused Keith from slumber.

His eyelids fluttered and his brows creased.

“Shiro?” he whimpered in confusion. Lance’s heart squeezed in sympathy.

“Go back to sleep,” Lance urged soothingly. Keith’s expression smoothed out, and his eyes drifted shut again.

Lance sighed and turned to leave, when suddenly something caught him, lightly holding him back.

He looked down to see that Keith had reached out in his sleep, and snagged one of Lance’s hands by the fingertips.

Lance let himself look for a moment, heart tender, and then he left.

He needed to continue the search where Keith had left off.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this prompt [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/180980091187/hello-i-seriously-just-fell-in-love-with-your)


	15. Blindfolded - Keith and Krolia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blindfolded with Keith and Krolia.
> 
> Tw: attempted sexual assault

“On your knees,” growled a Galra officer.  

There had been a fight, they had lost, missed their extraction, and in the thick of it, Keith had taken a concussive blow to the head. The smell of his own blood in the confines of his mask was making him feel nauseous…  

That was probably why he was slow to obey the order. Someone kicked him in the back of the legs to force him down, huffing impatiently as they did it.

His hands were tied together behind his back, so he could do nothing to cushion his fall. His knees hit the ground with bruising force.

“We don’t need all of them. Keep the small one, it’ll be easy to break. Kill the spares.”

Keith didn’t have any time to process those words, no time to act, before a Galra soldier stepped up with a blaster, raised it, and—

_Bang._

Regris fell.

_Bang._

Ilun fell.

Keith started to shake.

_Keep the small one…_

He felt ashamed that his knee-jerk reaction to being spared was relief. Regris and Ilun were dead, and all he could feel was relief that it wasn’t him. That he was still alive.

Stupid. They were the lucky ones, he was going to be broken.

“Let’s see what we have here…”

Big, rough, hands grabbed at him, forced his head back and tore at his mask, and then he was breathing the regulated air of the of a Galra destroyer, and staring up at the vicious faces of his captors.

“It’s pretty,” leered one of them, showing off rows of pearly pointed teeth as they loomed over him. It made Keith shudder in revulsion.

“Except the eyes,” injected another.

“Yeah, the white is  _creepy_ , and what a strange color.”

“Nothing a blindfold wouldn’t fix.” The Galra who said that—the same one who’d leered—ran the back of his clawed fingers across Keith’s cheek.

Keith tried to jerk away from the unwanted touch, but another hand clamped down on the back of his neck, immobilizing him. Even when the hand withdrew, Keith could feel the ghost of that touch on his skin. It felt slimy, like he’d need to scour himself to remove all traces of it.  

“The commander will want to interrogate it… Don’t break it so badly that it won’t be able to answer questions.”

The leery Galra graced Keith with another smile that made him feel uncomfortably _exposed._

“Thanks, boss.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first thing they did was blindfold him. Keith’s world turned dark, and narrowed down to what he could hear, and feel.

Hands on him, a bruising grip on his biceps as he was hauled away. The thud of heavy footfalls beside him, their impact vibrating through his body.

He tripped over his own feet, thoughts spinning in his aching, fuzzy head. He had to stay strong, he couldn’t tell them anything, no matter what they did to him.

Kolivan had drilled that lesson into him; knowledge or death. That included dying before  _giving up_  knowledge to the enemy. But he didn’t want to die…

He heard a door scrape open, and then he was shoved roughly forward, falling to his knees again.

“Why don’t you tell me your name, little boy?” the voice was cruel and condescending. Keith just pressed his lips together into a thin line.

“Suit yourself. I’m not interested in making you talk, that’s up to the commander. But until then…”

He was grabbed and roughly shoved face first into a wall, the impact rattling his brain, and then rough hands were on his back. Feeling along the seams of his suit, tugging, and then tearing at the fabric.

“N-no,” Keith choked out with dawning horror. He heard ripping, felt cool air against the bare skin of his back. Panic made him dizzy, his limbs frozen, his breath hitching.

“Hmm, such soft, pretty, skin…”

Claws dug into his shoulder blades like knives… and then Keith heard the door hinges squeak, and the claws abruptly retracted. The hands removed themselves from his body entirely, and Keith crumpled bonelessly to the ground.

“Commander?” the voice was surprised.

There was a beat of silence, and then Keith heard a rustle—felt movement in the air.

Keith flinched, and let out a whimper when he heard the sound of something sharp severing flesh. Something warm and wet splashed across one of his cheeks, and Keith smelled rust.

He wondered for a moment—heartbeat ringing in his ears—if  _he’d_  been stabbed, but then there came a heavy thump—a large body hitting the ground.

He didn’t hear them approach, so it startled him when they touched him. Gentle pressure on one shoulder that had him crying out in fright and trying to curl away. Into the wall, into himself, anywhere to get away from what he was certain was coming for him— _death._

The pressure withdrew from his shoulder, and then careful fingers were caressing his head, feeling his skull.

He hissed in pain when they found the spot where he’d taken that blow, and the touch withdrew.

And then they stroked his cheek, wiping away that spray of mystery liquid— _blood_ —Keith’s brain supplied. Wiping away his tears; Keith hadn’t even  _realized_  that there was a steady stream spilling from his eyes, seeping out from under the blindfold.  

Suddenly the cuffs securing his arms behind his back fell off.

Before Keith could react to his freedom, they took his hands, and pressed something familiar into his grip. Keith could tell what it was immediately without looking; his _blade._

_How-?_

“Go. Take an escape pod, and _go_.” The voice was female, her tone soft. She touched his cheek again, and stroked his hair back from his face, before withdrawing.  

By the time Keith had managed to get the blindfold off, his savior was gone, leaving him bewildered and alone in an open cell with the rapidly cooling body of the leery Galra.

Their head had nearly been severed from their body; it must have been a truly vicious strike. Keith’s blade was still wet with blood…

Pushing down his nausea, and pushing himself to his feet, Keith  _went._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr post for this snippet can be found [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/181864313167/for-badthingshappen-can-i-get-some-krolia).


	16. Human Shield - Pidge and Keith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Human Shield - Pidge and Keith

Even though Pidge only has a split second to make her decision, it is an easy one to make.

These are the facts:

  1. The Galra is aiming for Keith’s head.
  2. If Keith gets shot in the head, he will die.
  3. If Keith doesn’t die, he will most certainly be rendered unconscious at the very least, and will therefore be unable to make it back to his lion under his own power.
  4. Paladin training has made Pidge stronger, but Keith is  _heavy_. It’s doubtful that she’d be able to move him anywhere quickly.
  5. Even if she _does_ manage to outrun their enemies while carrying an unconscious/possibly dead Keith,  _she can't pilot Red_ , the lion that is their ride out of here.



When leads to her justifications:

  1. She can move, and take the shot somewhere that isn’t her head, like her shoulder or something.
  2. She probably won’t immediately die from a blaster wound in the shoulder.
  3. If that renders her unconscious, it won’t matter because—
  4. She is a tiny human—as loathe as she is to admit it—and Keith is _strong_. She had no doubt that he can carry her and run if necessary.
  5. Keith is the Red Paladin, the Red Lion is his to fly.



So Pidge jumps in front of him, and the world explodes into pain.

 

* * *

 

“Pidge!” Keith screams. Watching her fall feels like slow motion. Her knees hit the ground first, and then she tips forwards, torso following. The thud reverberates through the inside of Keith’s skull, and then Pidge lays still. Dangerously still. Everything inside of Keith contracts in horror and denial.

_No—_

He barely feels the motions he goes through to end the fight. Slash the sentry in front of him, pivot and hurl his whole fucking bayard at the one across the room that had aimed for him, but hit Pidge. _Shot_  Pidge.

The force of the throw impales the sentry through the chest, right up to the hilt, and it goes down, but Keith doesn’t wait to watch it fall.

He scrambles to Pidge’s side, rolls her over onto her front, and gasps.

His hands curl into fists and he swears viciously under his breath, because this looks bad.

The shot blew clear through her armor, leaving the edges blackened, and blood seeps out of the hole like water out of busted pipe.

_Should have been me._

Her eyes are wet and clouded with pain and confusion.

_This is my fault._

“K-Keith?” she stammers weakly, trying to raise herself, only to fall back with a pained gasp.

“I’m—I’m gonna get you out of here,” Keith vows.  

Without thinking about it, he raises an arm in the direction of his bayard, and it materializes in his hand. He’s never done that before, but it doesn’t matter. Time is of the essence.

He gathers up Pidge’s limp body, trying to be careful, trying not to jostle her injury, but still, she fights him.

“ _Ow!_  Hurts—p-put—lemme down—” she cries, words slurred, squirming weakly.

“I’m sorry,” says Keith, hitching her higher in his arms so that he can run.

She whimpers, a pained sound that reaches directly into Keith’s chest cavity to stab at his heart. But he can’t stop, no matter how much she begs, or tells him it hurts.

“Just stay with me, you’re gonna be okay,” Keith urges.

He runs so fast he’s practically flying.

 

* * *

 

Pidge’s memories after that are fuzzy and indistinct. An outraged growl. Panicked words urging her to keep her eyelids open—they feel so  _heavy._ Being lifted, weightless, as fire and agony assail her shoulder. Struggling against it, trying to push it away.

And then blissful cold, dark, nothing.

 

* * *

 

When proper consciousness returns to her, she is falling out of a cryopod, and into directly into Shiro’s arms. He hugs her tightly, with a desperation that surprises her.

“Is she okay?” That’s Keith, and he sounds impatient.

“She’s _fine_ , number four.” It sounds like that is not the first time Coran had said those words.   

Shiro finally steps back, holding her at arm’s length.

“You gave us a scare,” he says. 

“We’re so glad to see you back on your feet,” says Allura, stepping forward to gently press her glasses back onto her face. 

It lets her see that behind them the whole team is assembled. They were all worried enough to be here, waiting for her to get out… it makes Pidge feel warm.

“I knew Keith had everything under control,” she says, grinning.

To her surprise, her words make Keith’s face crumple in distress, and then he covers his face with both hands as his shoulders start to silently shake.

Pidge can only stare at him in shock, because—is Keith—? Is he  _crying?_

Hunk sets a hand on Keith’s back, giving him a comforting pat, and Lance says “There, there, mullet, she’s fine,” and they are the first words Pidge has ever heard Lance say to the other boy that contain no hints of meanness or teasing.

Pidge stumbles forward unsteadily until she’s right in front of him.

“Keith?”  

Keith sniffs, and lowers his hands, revealing red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.

“That shot was for me, they were aiming for me, but you—you—” he hides his face in his hands again.

“They were aiming at your head specifically,” Pidge points out, and then she starts to ramble, scratching the back of her head because this is awkward. Keith is their resident emo hotheaded loner, and here he is crying. Over her.

“I’d do it again, you know. I knew a shot to the shoulder wouldn’t kill me, and I knew you’d get me out of there, and I couldn’t fly Red anyways so we’d have— _oof.”_

Keith lunges forward and swallows her up in a hug.

“Don’t do that again,’ he growls, squeezing her so tightly she can barely breathe.

More arms pile around them as everyone joins in on the hug.

“But… thank you,” Keith whispers, just to Pidge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find the tumblr post for this [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/182004726777/hi-im-loving-your-badthingshappen-series-are)


	17. Keith and Hunk - Isolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Hunk - Isolation
> 
> Happens during the Weblum, and instead of finding Acxa, Keith freed Narti...
> 
> (Warning for an ambiguous ending)

He was floating in a warm pool, surrounded by soft fluffy clouds. The burden of carrying his own weight, of making decisions, had been entirely lifted from him.

He had no worries, no cares. No pain or anguish. He could just relax, and obey and gentle pressure in his head.

A gentle pressure that nudged him to raise his bayard...

 

_Hunk! Hunk don’t! It’s me, Keith! He’s—it’s messing with your head! Please! You have to fight it!_

 

That voice… It was familiar, tinged with desperation. It didn’t matter, he didn’t need to worry about it. He didn’t need to worry about _anything._

When Hunk pulled the trigger—as easy as breathing—he barely registered the bang. Hardly felt the kickback…

 

And then suddenly the the weight of the world returned to him, hitting him like a forty-ton truck. He gasped, choking on a massive inhale. His bayard returned to its handle form. It floated out of his slack grip, innocently unassuming.   

Keith sharpened into focus in front of him, floating face down, as if he’d drowned. A thin trail of red hovered around him, like a twisted, bloody ribbon.

_Oh god…_

“K-Keith?”

He didn’t move. Didn’t even _twitch_.  

_“Keith!”_

Hunk grabbed his bayard, and activated his jetpack. The few seconds it took him to traverse the distance between them felt like an eternity, his hammering pulse tapping out the time as it slipped away. Finally, he got a hold of Keith’s arm, and gently rolled him over to his front. The movement disturbed the red ribbon of liquid floating around him, making it flutter.   

Keith’s chest plate was cracked open, the edges blackened from the heat of the blast—right shoulder. His eyes were hazy and unfocused, face deathly pale.

“H-Hunk?” he whimpered, sounding dazed.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” Hunk chanted; he could hear Keith’s precious air escaping out of the breech in his suit, he could see more blood uncoiling…

_What have I done?_

There wasn’t time for Hunk to dwell on his actions, they needed to leave _now_. He had to get Keith back to Yellow before all his air leaked out. And all his blood. All his life.

“Okay, okay, gotta get us out of here,” Hunk mumbled to himself. Keith couldn’t afford for him to crumble, he had to be _strong._  

He wrapped his arms securely around Keith’s middle, and looked desperately around the inside of the weblum like there might be a helpful exit sign to point him in the right direction. He saw something better—the creepy little creatures of the weblum’s immune system gathering together in the middle of the large chamber.

He remembered this—he’d _seen_ this, before everything had gone hazy. Before that Galra had gotten behind him, and—

No. Now wasn’t the time to think about it. He had to make sure they got ejected when the weblum released its excess gas. It spoke to how out-of-it Keith was that he offered no resistance at all to Hunk’s manhandling.

Hunk flew forward, Keith clutched tightly to his chest. He saw an aperture open, far, far above them. He saw those creatures getting sucked away, and then he felt that force acting on them too. Pulling them faster than the jet-pack could carry them.

He squeezed Keith—terrified that he might lose him—and shut his eyes tightly, screaming at the top of his lungs as they hurtled through what felt like a terrifyingly fast, dark, water-slide.

“We made it!” he cried when they popped out the other side.

He didn’t get to celebrate for long however, because that Galra was back, and this time they were piloting a ship.

Hunk shrieked, jet-packing away when they were fired on. The weblum didn’t seem to notice, or care, about the shots hitting its back, in the way that dogs didn’t care about their fleas.

Hunk dodged in and out of the sharp spires sticking out of the weblum’s back, but eventually there was nowhere left to hide; they’d reached the edge.

And that was the exact moment the Galra decided to turn around and leave them be.

“Thank go— _OH MY GOD,_ ” screamed Hunk, when he realized why.

They’d been herded to the weblum’s head, where the weblum was gearing up to let loose one of it’s deadly bursts of energy, and they were right in its path.

The weblum opened its mouth; there was no time left for them. No time for Hunk to get them out of way. All he could do was turn them around so his back was to the blast, and hold Keith tighter, curling around him protectively.    

“I’m sorry, Keith,” he choked out, a final apology and goodbye.

“S’okay,” whispered Keith in reply.

Hunk saw a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, felt heat on his back, and then he heard a _roar._

At the last possible moment, Yellow swooped in and swallowed them up.

Yellow bore the full force of the blast, and they were tossed around inside of him like they were in a washing machine.  

When everything finally went still, the weblum was but a hulking monster in the far distance, and the Yellow Lion was dark.

Hunk felt like he was going to be sick. He could handle high speeds and hairpin turns when _he_ was the one in control of how fast and which direction, but not when he tumbled around uncontrollably. He was going to be covered in bruises after this. Yellow’s emergency lights clicked on,

“Keith? How you doing?” Hunk choked out as he tried to force down the nausea rising in his throat. He didn’t answer.

“Keith?” Hunk called again, looking up.

Keith was sprawled on the floor, and he wasn’t wearing his helmet…

Hunk staggered over and dropped down beside him.

“Oh no…” There was a very obvious bump on Keith’s temple, and blood dripping onto his forehead from some unseen cut in his hair; he must have knocked his head in the chaos. _Hard_ , because he wasn’t conscious, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. A concussion. Just what Keith needs to go with that blaster wound...

Hunk fetched Yellow’s first aid kit, and dealt with Keith’s head first by locating the bleeding spot, and pressing a bandage over it to stem the flow. Luckily it looked shallow; bloody because of location, not the depth of the wound.

That done, Hunk knew what needed to happen next. He needed to take off Keith’s armor, assess the damage, administer first aid.

But the thought of seeing the wound—a wound that _he_ had inflicted—made Hunk feel sick to his stomach. It made his hands shake.

“Don’t think, just _do,_ ” he said to himself, pulling off his gloves and his helmet.

The scent of charred flesh assailed his nose immediately, making him retch, but he forced it down.     

Breathing shallowly, Hunk unclipped Keith’s chest-plate, and pulled it away…

It was horrible. Red, and angry, and bloody, reaching so deeply into Keith’s body that Hunk felt obliged to check for an exit wound. He thanked his lucky stars that there wasn’t one, because one gaping wound was enough to be dealing with.

Hunk did his best. He cleaned up the blood, and carefully cut away the burnt edges of Keith’s flight suit, layering gauze and bandages over the area.

And then there was nothing left to do but sit and wait for Yellow to come back online. He carefully maneuvered Keith’s head into his lap to make him more comfortable, and settled in to wait...

 

And wait...

 

And wait...

 

Over a varga passed with nothing but Keith’s worryingly shallow breathing, and the void of space. Hunk had never felt so isolated.

Keith ended up waking before Yellow did, alerting Hunk to the fact when the rhythm of his breathing changed.

He made a pained sound when his eyes fluttered open, brow furrowed in distress, mouth turned down in a frown.

“H-hey, Keith,” Hunk murmured, lightly brushing Keith’s hair back from his face in an attempt to be soothing.

“How are you feeling?”

“Sh-Shiro?” Keith whimpered, squinting in confusion.

“No, Keith—I’m not—”

“D _-dad?_ ”

It was the way Keith said it that got to Hunk. So sad, yet hopeful.

“Dad—if y-you’re—am I—? I’m _dead?_ ”   

_Fuck._ Hunk was not equipped to deal with this. His heart was crumbling in his chest.   

“You’re not dead,” Hunk choked out.

“Oh… I—I  miss you,” said Keith.  

And then he sniffed

“Oh god, Keith, it’s _me_ , Hunk. Please don’t—don’t—”  

It was too late; Keith started to cry.

“Why—w-why’d you leave?” he sobbed, and all Hunk could do was carefully gather him up, and hold him against his chest. He was as limp as a rag-doll in Hunk’s arms, _small_ in a way Hunk had never seen him before. Keith’s presence and his conviction burned so brightly that it was easy for Hunk to forget that he was just a boy. A boy, same as him.   

Keith only stopped crying when his spent body fell unconscious.

Hunk didn’t let him go. He didn't stop crying either, tears dripping silently down his cheeks.

Vargas passed. Still, Yellow didn’t wake up. Keith didn’t wake up again either.

It was Hunk alone, with just the sound of their breathing. Keith’s rattled, and stopped, and started, and in the end Hunk took Keith’s wrist and kept his fingers on his pulse because he was terrified it would _stop_.  

Yellow’s emergency lights spluttered, and then extinguished, plunging them into darkness.  

Oh god. Was… was this going to be it for them?

Hunk couldn’t help himself, he thought of every interaction he’d ever had with Keith, every joke, every conversation, every comradely high five and backslap, every meal they’d shared. He thought of all the times he’d let Keith be, sensing a mood, or preferring to not get dragged down. He thought of every time he’d let Keith down out of laziness or simply thinking, ‘he’ll be fine—he’s Keith’, and he wondered how much more there could have been if he hadn’t. If he’d given more of a shit about his friend. He wondered if everything could have been better, more somehow.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Hunk whispered into the empty darkness of the sleeping Lion. “I’m sorry I shot you, I’m sorry I let you down, I’m sorry I don’t know how to save you. I’m sorry I never tried to cheer you up when Lance was getting to you, I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to help you guys get along. I think you’d really like him, if you got to know him.” He looked down at Keith’s slack face, past pained and broken and just… relaxed. Like he wasn’t able to feel the hurt anymore. “I wish I got to know you better. I’m sorry I can’t save you,” Hunk’s voice cracked. “I won’t let go, I promise.”

 

 

So that’s where they sat, waiting for whatever came first - for someone to save them or for it to be too late. And Hunk didn’t let go.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my friend [Elle Gray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LGray/pseuds/Elle%20Gray) for finishing the last paragraph for me when my brain refused to do more. You have her to blame for the ambiguous ending. :)
> 
> You can find the tumblr post for this [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/post/182291914862/can-i-request-isolation-with-keith-and-hunk).

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is where I'm gonna put all the Bad Things Happen Bingo card prompts I fill. 
> 
> [Here](https://badthingshappenbingo.tumblr.com/) is the Bad Things Happen Bingo tumblr if you're interested in acquiring a card for yourself, and [here](https://greenteafiend.tumblr.com/) is my tumblr.


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